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An attempt to AI my Discworld FanFic
: Banded 2: On Demand"Malik will be by later, for dinner," Harcourt announced. "He wants to introduce himself to the wizard imported for the uprising, as it were."“And, I assume,” Thorrin replied, “to try to make the case for me to ensure his fifty-greats grandfather comes down on the masculine.”“I think he’ll probably count on your assistance as a done deal,” the ambassador mused. “He’s been dropping the name of Ali the Great since your book came out. They went to the same school.”“The Illusionary Institute of Learning?” Thorrin surprised.“No, the finishing school, here in Al-Khali, before Aki went to Djelibeybi and Malik went to university in Bonk.” “Ah. Well, at least now I know where one of the five copies that sold went.” Thorrin nodded. “We’ll be ready for dinner. Have to go set up our rooms and patch Inga’s skull.”“Of course. Terry should be in the hall, he’ll show you the rooms, then tell him what you need in the way of patching material.”“He was in Uberwald!” Inga enthused.“I heard.”“So, he’s eaten Uberwald FOOD!”“And may the fates have mercy upon his soul.”“But he might like it! We should talk to the cooks!”Before Harcourt could protest Inga’s suggestion, Thorrin winked at him. “The ambassador has a very competent embassy, so we will not be poking around in that well-wound clock.”“If you think so,” she said. The door shut. Harcourt sighed, sinking into his chair. Vetinari HAD to know what he was about. Didn’t he?----- “Stop rubbing your skull.”“It feels different!”“You’ve never felt it before!”“I felt it all day!”“No, you felt your left side. Now that you’re not in front of a mirror, you’re feeling your right.”“Oh. Well, it feels different, too.”“No, it doesn’t.” The man escorting them to the parlor[1] might have been the one that met them at the gate. They all looked alike to Thorrin. He opened the door, nodded to the man inside, and waved them in.“Thorrin Banded, and Inga Caller,” the announcer tried to introduce them. Inga started to correct the mistakes, but Thorrin yanked her past[2] and into the party.A few people made polite noises as they swept by, then the two were cornered by the Prince. Malik swooped up to them, shook the wizard’s hand, nodded at Inga, and started off with a question."I could have sworn I was told you were Thorrin Carpenter? Did the door man err?”“He erred, but that wasn’t the error,” Thorrin explained. He pointed to two bands of metal near the top of his staff. “I was rewarded by some Vikings for a favor I did them.”“Ah. I spent time in Uberwald,” Malik smiled. Thorrin waited patiently for some reason that wasn’t a non-sequitur. “All barbarians, what?” “Oh. I see,” Thorrin said coldly. Malik didn’t seem to notice. “No, I took the name ‘Thorrin the Banded’ to commemorate the high regard of Tharl Eean and her people. And Inga took ‘Inga Cadence Caller’ from the same adventure.”Malik stared as if this time HE couldn’t figure out how the words formed an idea..“You were schooled in Bonk!” Inga interrupted.“Bonk,” he said, correcting her pronunciation.“No, it’s pronounced that way,” she insisted. She slowly said it, “Beeeee-Yoooonnnnk.”“No,” he smiled smugly. “I was there for four years. It’s always been Bonk.”Inga squeaked in frustration. Thorrin rushed in, “Inga grew up in Uberwald,” he warned. Malik blinked. “Who’s Inga?”“The woman you’ve been talking to.”“Woman…?” he sounded confused. “Oh, your compan- GREAT OFFLER THAT’S A SKELETON!”Inga and Thorrin had a moment of telepathic conspiracy. Both turned, looking around wildly, and asking, “Where? WHERE?”Harcourt called for someone to fetch some brandy. Then he pointed directly to one of the staff and sent him specifically to go and explain ‘someone’ to mean ‘someone who isn’t Inga’ to Inga, before she could offer the Prince brandy.The zombie didn’t return for a while, giving the Prince a chance to recover. Henry and Thorrin sat to either side of him in a corner seating arrangement. They sipped their drinks, while the Prince guzzled his.With his mouth shut, or occupied, Thorrin could look the man over. He was about average height for a Klatchian. Not too weathered or scarred, as all the people at the take-aways seemed to be. At least those that talked to the customers, not the kids, cooks, or bouncers.Dark curly hair surrounded a pleasant face, maybe a shade too much kohl around the eyes?“Anyway,” Malik said, sitting up suddenly to resume his discussion. “We have a connection, you know?”“No, really?”“Ali, the subject of your wonderful book.”“Ali the Great?”“The very same. We attended the same school, here in the city.”“Together?” Thorrin asked. “Yes, together! Of course, he was six years ahead of me,” Malik admitted.“At a four-year school,” Harcourt pointed out.Malik ignored him. “Up until Ali went to Djelibeybi to become a necromancer like you.”“You didn’t read my book,” Thorrin realized. “I have people to read for me,” he said dismissively. “And they provide summaries.”“Which you also didn’t read,” Thorrin knew.“Not yet. But once I am the Seriph, I shall prioritize that summary!” He looked around the room for a second. “So, Ali attended a wizard school for only… men, right?”“Men on the right, men on the left, I would assume men all over the campus,” Thorrin said. “We’re much the same at the Unseen University. All male students.”“So, men dealing with men, as it should be,” Malik said. “And a man on the throne here, would be a friend to Ankh-Morpork.”“My Lady knows, we could always use more friends,” Thorrin pretended to agree. Malik nodded and sat back.“If we’re talking about becoming friends, you would, upon gaining the throne, rescind the death penalty for necromancers in Klatch?” Thorrin asked calmly.“I… I would give you special dispensation,” Malik hesitated. “I am not sure my council will allow me to fully retract that edict.”Thorrin shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.” He was glad neither Inga nor Earlinda were there to say something like, ‘the grave-robber’s motto.’They were soon called in to dinner. Thorrin found Inga by the door to the kitchen. She looked morose.[3]“You spoke to the chefs?” he asked.“It’s something local,” she muttered. “And now you’re in the mood for vurst?” he guessed.“The very vurst!” she said angrily. “And when I asked if the ‘local’ food was a Klatchian Hots? He laughed at me!”“Those were invented in Morpork,” he pointed out, taking her elbow and guiding her to their seats. “By Klatchians!” she insisted. “So they’d have been real Klatchian food, right?”The place-cards placed him next to the Prince. He pretended not to notice them and set Inga between him and the idiot. “As I understand it,” he explained. “They were trying to cook traditional food, but an imp infested their kitchen and screwed it up. Everyone was amazed at how popular it turned out to be.”“A Taste Of Sand!” Thorrin looked across the table. The man sitting there was nodding happily. “I have eaten there! They invented the Klatchian Hot. Here, of course, it would be simply A Hot.”“Did you like it?” Inga asked.“Absolutely revolting,” the man said cheerfully. “Probably quite entertaining for Barbarians, but for one used to the wonderful cuisine of Al-Khali…Ah! Dinner!” They all turned as Dinner was served. Several huge platters of seasoned rice and sliced meat were placed on the table, in reach of the diners. In the exact center was a sheep’s head. It had been roasted intact, the eyeballs bulging out of the skull.Before either could move, a server leaned down between Thorrin and Inga. “Lord Harcourt has asked me,” she said softly, “to explain to you that the head is merely a traditional garnish, no one usually eats from it.“I have also been instructed to tell you that if Inga eats one of the eyes while she looks as she looks, she may get the embassy burned down.”The woman nodded politely at them both, then retreated. Thorrin muttered softly, “We’ll call that Plan B, then.” Inga giggled.----- Fatima attended a dinner at the Embassy the next night.“How many people are we going to meet?” Thorrin asked.“The court astrologers have determined the best date to attempt the tomb. We have time until then,” Henry explained. A beat later added, “Just these two here. And a meeting with the Seriph and his advisors in a few days.”“Days wasted,” Inga moaned. “Hey, am I getting per diem?” “You’re getting room and board,” Harcourt replied. “What would the per diem be FOR?”“Pastries is my guess,” Thorrin said. “No, we aren’t getting per diem. We’re independently wealthy, remember?”“Oh. Yeah.” A different group of local businessmen and nobility attended Fatima’s dinner. They kept a wide margin around the woman, leading Thorrin and Inga straight to where she sat.Thorrin thought her a striking woman, looking only slightly older than Malik. But her eyes were much sharper. She reminded him quite a bit of Earlinda. He started wondering where she hid her poison-dart pipes. Before he started introductions she rose and offered her hand. “Thorrin the Banded,” she said in Klatchian. “So nice to meet you.”Then she turned to the zombie and, in fluent Morporkian, said, “And you must be Inga Cadence Caller.” She offered an air kiss to each of Inga’s cheekbones.“Well, THAT was some impressive homework you did,” Thorrin said. She smiled and invited them to sit. “I just like to be prepared.” The conversation continued in the language that included Inga.“I teach for a living,” he told her, though she certainly knew that. “If three of my students are that prepared for the final, I consider it a very successful year."“If I am to be the first woman Seriph, I will have to be much better at it just to survive, much less to accomplish anything.” She glanced at all the powerful people who were not approaching her despite the clear opportunity. “The more prepared I am, the less they have to criticize.”“You’re not wearing a veil,” Inga noticed.“Royalty makes their own rules,” Fatima told her, a small smile showing. “But if I take charge, that’s one thing I will have changed.”“Really?” Inga asked.“Really. The Seriph who set that law liked to look at attractive women, but he hated the idea that men would look at HIS women.” She gave a larger smile. “I have no women to be jealous of.”“Good! I hope you win!” Inga cheered. Fatima’s gaze slewed to Thorrin. “Did you not tell her?”“Tell her what?”“Let us not dissemble, sir. They would have prepared you, and told you I am no friend to Ankh-Morpork.” Thorrin raised an eyebrow, inviting further revelations.“We are at war, sir. Right now, it is fought with gold, not armies, but the strife is not any less for the lack of bloodshed.”Thorrin shrugged. “Financial competition is better for everyone than a war would be. You’re the smartest person I’ve met in a while. You’ve got to be better on the throne than…others.“But,” he said, “I can’t trim the results one way or another. I assume wizards will be watching when I raise Al Kohl Holl? If they detect me swinging the guy’s answers, it’ll be worse than any honest answer could be.”“You are not stupid either, are you?” Fatima said with a small smile. “For a Barbarian from an upstart village on our enemy’s shores.” He shrugged. “I read your book, sir.”“ANOTHER copy sold? I’m very gratified!”“You were quite respectful of Ali The Great, and his homeland. But… There are a few details missing from your account.”“Ali directly attacked our city. He posed a threat no one wants to see again. Our Patrician had a few editorial concerns about the account.”“Ah. And would one be able to get a grasp of what was considered…confidential?”“Nope,” he said. She seemed unsurprised and turned to Inga.“I believe you enjoy travel? Seeing new things?”“Oh, yes!”“I will send someone to take you to the Soak. I am given to understand our bazaar is like Ankh-Morpork’s ‘Shades’ neighborhood, but with pistachios.”“Oooooh!” Inga replied, then turned to her boss. “Unless that’s a bribe?”“Doesn’t matter, you can’t tip the scales, either,” he told her.“Great! We still have a day or two, right?”“The Court Astrologers tell me so,” Fatima said, glancing at the wizard.“What?”“You have…Opinions on a court of the modern age using a star-gazer’s influence, I assume?”“Fatima, some of the best seers at University are from Klatch. And they all teach Klatchian methods for casting horoscopes. For me, astrology is better considered an established tool, like calculus, six-color map theory, or how the tides cause heart attacks.”“You get smarter the longer you sit here,” Fatima said with a small laugh.“I have a question,” Inga asked.“You may at least ask it,” the Princess said.“You said you don’t have any women. If you DO become Seriph, can we come back and see your harem?”Fatima burst out laughing loudly. The whole room turned to stare. “Inga, my sweet, that is the first time anyone has asked about my harem! That is wonderful. I must tell my advisors about this.” The three of them smiled at each other.“So, now you like us? We’re friends?” Ing asked hopefully.“I like you Inga,” Princess Fatima said. “I believe I can work with The Banded, here. Your city-state remains a bitter enemy I must fight with every tool at my disposal.”“Aw!”“Inga! Don’t worry about Ol’ AM,” Thorrin said. “She can take care of herself. Concentrate on the important detail, here.”“Which is?”“You made a friend. Again.”“Yes! That’s right!” She squealed and turned to the Princess. “Would, um… When your person takes me to see the pistachios, would it be more friendly if I wore, well, skin?”“I do not like the dress code, either!” Fatima reminded her. “The only thing I might ask you is to wear a veil, make it clear that you are obeying the letter of the stupid law, if not the intent.”“Oh, can I?” she asked. Thorrin nodded.Then he asked the same question, “Princess, upon gaining the throne, would you rescind the death penalty for necromancers in Klatch?” “We find ourselves importing a specialist from our mortal enemy to solve an internal problem. Without that law, we would have a proper necromancer who worshiped Offler,” she said angrily.“You may take it as granted that I will be removing that threat.” Then she smiled. “So that you can come back freely and show my harem to your butler.”---- The next day, there was a discreet knock on the door to the rooms assigned to them. Which got louder and louder as time went on.Eventually, the maid was forced to open the door and peer inside. The staff had been telling each other horror stories about traveling wizards and their rooms. What practices were performed in them; what was found after they left; what the next guest reported seeing, hearing, or smelling while staying in them.She was terrified but she had her orders.There was nothing untoward in the room except for a small shed. It looked harmless, but so did the log in the river before it rolled over and ate you.She tiptoed across the room, glancing around, hoping for an alternative to knocking. When she almost reached the door, it opened. No one was behind it. Just darkness.Sure that someone was watching, probably laughing at her, she stopped, stood up straight, and put her hands on her hips. “Here, I’d rather quit. I like the job, but I’m not paid for no wizard stuff.”The lights came on within the shed, showing a stable inside that was much too big for the shed’s outside. There was a coffee service on a table near her. She grabbed a spoon and threw it at what she thought might be an illusion. The door slammed shut at the first sound of the spoon striking the floor, then opened slowly. The spoon sat in the middle, unharmed.[4]“Still wizard stuff.” She turned to go.“Coming!” the skeleton’s voice called from inside. “Just a second!” The maid turned to wait. She saw the butler descend a flight of stairs, then run over to the door. “Can I help you?”“There’s a visitor. Um. Miss.”“Oh, I’ll get Thorrin.”“No, Miss, I mean, it’s for you.”“Me?” Inga asked, almost as surprised as she looked.“Your guide for the Soak, I believe.”“Yay! Let me get some money, tell Thorrin I’m going!” She turned and saw the coffee spoon on the floor. “What are you doing there?”“I tossed it,” the maid admitted. “Case the open door was a trap.”“REFUGE!” Inga snapped. “Staff is off limits, same as back home!” She turned to apologize. “Sorry, we think she’s really missed her games with the students.” Then she ran back to the stairs. Alone with the magic house, the maid stared at the spoon ten steps across the stable floor. It seemed to shine very brightly in the stable’s light. “How dumb you think I am?” The door swung shut slowly. When it opened again, the spoon was right at the very lip of the door sill. Feeling a bit silly, she bent down and scooped up the flatware. Then skipped back. She’d seen how fast that door could move. “Thank you… Refuge, was it? Thanks, Refuge.” The guide was in another parlor, this one dominated by an ornate map of the Ankh-Morpork/Klatch trading routes hanging on the wall. She was perusing that.[5]Inga entered and examined her guest. The assessins had spent winter teaching her to assess people’s net worth on sight. She noted the fine clothes, the close tailoring, the complementary and expensive jewelry. A sum appeared in her mind.“Princess Fatima pays her employees very well!” she said.“She does,” the guide agreed. “But I am her daughter.” She held out a hand. “Princess Akilah.” She didn’t flinch as the skeletal grip wrapped around her fingers.“Do we need guards?” Inga asked.“I am a local, and known. I will be safe,” Akilah said. “We should probably get guards for you, though.”“Hmm.” Inga stepped to the fireplace and twisted the iron poker into a torc and wore out around her spine. “Call it ‘fair warning,’ maybe?” “Mother did say I would learn a lot being your guide,” Akilah smiled.“What have you learned already?” Inga asked.The young woman pointed at what used to be a fire poker. “I never quite understood the purpose or use of a fireplace. Until today.”Inga loved the Soak, a confusing maze of stalls, coffee shops, undifferentiated warehouses, poisoners and/or apothecaries[6], butchers, silversmiths, goldsmiths, temples, camel markets, slave markets, and many places where you could sit and relax and soon learn all about the slave market’s acquisition process. And everything was horribly overpriced. “The Soak in Al-Khali is the biggest soaking one can take in the entire world,” Akilah bragged. “You’ve never dragged skulls off the sea floor,” Inga said. "Now that was soaking wet.”Akilah stared. And tried to organize her thoughts into a question. “Was that… Was your necromaster casting a great work that needed skulls?”“You could say that. We couldn’t hire a crew so he went out and made one.”Little beggar children ran up to beg from the ‘pretty foreign lady’ and got as far as ‘Pre-‘ when they remembered it was time to be about ten miles away from wherever the pretty scary lady was.Older children working as shills set out to tell the foreign woman that her hair would look beautiful with their fathers’ scarves or combs or earrings. Or her fingers needed more rings. Or her neck was just crying for the greatest, um, I, um, you see… Something. I forgot what… Um. Hand-made, I remember that. I have to go, now.Akilah didn’t bother to translate any of those.But the silversmith caught both of Inga’s eyes. He had a silver and gold model of the world. The Disc, on Elephants, on Turtle. Features of the continents were visible, cities were jewels, Core Celesti, the Mountain where the Gods lived at the hub was a stunning crystal spire.“How much?” Inga asked. The Princess was too canny to immediately make such an offer, and asked for details, the names of the artists, how many pieces, and so on.The craftsman swore he was the only artist, that it was a solid construction, and note that each elephant was distinct! He named them and pointed them out. He spoke entirely to the Princess, dismissing the foreigner by her clothes the moment they entered his shop.“That’s not Great T’Phon,” Inga said, catching the name in passing.“How do you know?”“He’s got a little scar, right here, just at the tip of the trunk. Well, I say little, but only against the context of a mundusphant, you know.” Akilah translated, then summarized the lengthy rebuttal.“He says he spoke with no less than eight astrologers about the details. He got illustrations from seven books.”“Astrologers look up. I went…there,” she tapped a fingernail to a spot on the rim. “And looked down.” She looked at the Princess. “It’s in the book.”“What book?”“The Incredible Life of Ali the Great and-““You’re THAT Inga!?!?”“Mom didn’t tell you?”“Mother said your boss wrote a book… I didn’t realize it was a memoir!” She turned to the vendor. “She knows what she’s talking about! She’s gone to see the elephant!”“Why,” he asked, “would I take the word of a foreign person hiding behind a glamour, over that of our best skygazers? I ask you!”“He says you’re an illusion.”“Does he have a ribbon? I can thread it through my ribs and he can pull on it, see how good the illusion stands up.”“He will not willingly participate in your illusionary tactics,” Akilah translated.“Ah. Hmm. How would Helga have handled this? Aha!” She grabbed the merchant’s nose to hold him in place. Then she opened her shirt. Taking his hand, she shoved it into the space below her ribs so he could feel her spine. Then pulled at his elbow, lifting his hand up along her ribs until it was visible above her collar. She looked at the shopkeeper kneeling before her. “Ask him how many fingers I’m holding up?”When the Princess could finally understand the rapid babbling, she said, “He would like to offer you a very severe discount on the Discpiece, since it fails so badly to satisfy the knowledgeable nice lady, With free delivery to wherever it is that you are staying, but he must have his hand back to write the instructions for the deliverymen, thank you so very much, mistress. And, oh yes, five fingers, may Bastet be praised.”“Bastet? Not Offler?” Inga asked as she released her accuser.“There are about 3000 religions on the Klatch continent,” Akilah said conversationally, while the smith was screaming at his sons to get them ready to quickly carry a purchase to the Embassy. After he took a moment for a little bit of a nervous breakdown in the back of the store, he returned to the front to discuss the final price, delivery included. He named a number and Akilah repeated it in Morporkian.“That’s quite a discount,” Inga observed. “You did make quite an attractive first offer.”“I did? When?”“When you gave him back his hand. Time is money, you know, as are fingers in some cases.”“Ah. Well, I was going to offer his asking price, anyway.”Akilah could see that the man was terrified that he hadn’t offered a sufficient discount and accepted the half-price offer in Inga’s name. They then went to find some pistachios. The nuts were available roasted in several different spices. Inga bought the Princess a bag, and bought herself every single flavor.Then they found a place for coffee and sat to enjoy the drink with the nuts. Akilah stared. “You are not eating anything. Just smelling everything than making happy zombie sounds.”“I am eating everything!” She explained the metaphysical transactions in progress. Akilah stared. “And the best part is, nothing goes from my lips to my hips this way!” Akilah stared, her mouth hanging open. “Because I don’t have lips,” Inga explained. “Or hips? You’re not laughing.”“I am astounded, Inga. Can I come with you?” “You’re the one showing me around, Princess. Don’t you…HAVE to come with me?”“Into the tomb. Mother needs an agent to observe that there is not the hankpan. I wish to be the one to observe you in the tomb.”“Do you mean hanky panky?” She thought about it. “I can’t say yes or no, but if your mother says yes, Thorrin will probably not say no. Why do you want to come into an icky, lethal tomb?”“You are so new.”“New? Sweetie, I’m a hundred years old. Most of it dead.”“I’ve never imagined anyone like you. There are new ideas and new ways to think about things every time you open your mouth. I mean, when your jaw… I mean, I mean…”“I understand,” Inga said. “And I’m smiling, you should know. Well, ask. I’m certainly in favor.” She lowered what she was using as her voice to say, “And Thorrin never wins those arguments.”---- Five miles away from the Soak, Thorrin had found a biography of Al Kohl Holl. He’d skipped to the end for the description of the tomb. The word ‘lethal,’ or a synonym, came up about four times every page of that chapter.“Greeeeeeeeeeeat,” he muttered. “Hope I don’t like anyone that’s going in there with us.” [1] And studiously ignoring the conversation of a skeleton complaining about her skull. [2] Or, really, applied pressure in a non-verbal instruction, hopefully optimistic that she’d acquiesce. [3] Not that skeletons typically look all that chipper. Chipped, maybe, depending on how they died. [4] Refuge was not completely innocent in the matter of University students found trapped within. They had started it, but she really came to enjoy finishing it. [5] Klatch was across the Circle Sea from Ankh-Morpork. The Sea Route for trade cut straight across the water. The Land Route followed the shore through six other countries. The guide was politely pretending to be absorbed in a fat letter D. [6] Not completely interchangeable, but in some of them it depended on how the pharmacist’s day was going.

Thorrin takes Inga as his butler on a trip to Klarch on University business.

Trying to comply with the local laws, Inga will not wear a vail, but her wizard figures out how to make it so that no one sees her flesh.

Description
An attempt to AI my Discworld FanFic
: Banded 2: On Demand"Malik will be by later, for dinner," Harcourt announced. "He wants to introduce himself to the wizard imported for the uprising, as it were."“And, I assume,” Thorrin replied, “to try to make the case for me to ensure his fifty-greats grandfather comes down on the masculine.”“I think he’ll probably count on your assistance as a done deal,” the ambassador mused. “He’s been dropping the name of Ali the Great since your book came out. They went to the same school.”“The Illusionary Institute of Learning?” Thorrin surprised.“No, the finishing school, here in Al-Khali, before Aki went to Djelibeybi and Malik went to university in Bonk.” “Ah. Well, at least now I know where one of the five copies that sold went.” Thorrin nodded. “We’ll be ready for dinner. Have to go set up our rooms and patch Inga’s skull.”“Of course. Terry should be in the hall, he’ll show you the rooms, then tell him what you need in the way of patching material.”“He was in Uberwald!” Inga enthused.“I heard.”“So, he’s eaten Uberwald FOOD!”“And may the fates have mercy upon his soul.”“But he might like it! We should talk to the cooks!”Before Harcourt could protest Inga’s suggestion, Thorrin winked at him. “The ambassador has a very competent embassy, so we will not be poking around in that well-wound clock.”“If you think so,” she said. The door shut. Harcourt sighed, sinking into his chair. Vetinari HAD to know what he was about. Didn’t he?----- “Stop rubbing your skull.”“It feels different!”“You’ve never felt it before!”“I felt it all day!”“No, you felt your left side. Now that you’re not in front of a mirror, you’re feeling your right.”“Oh. Well, it feels different, too.”“No, it doesn’t.” The man escorting them to the parlor[1] might have been the one that met them at the gate. They all looked alike to Thorrin. He opened the door, nodded to the man inside, and waved them in.“Thorrin Banded, and Inga Caller,” the announcer tried to introduce them. Inga started to correct the mistakes, but Thorrin yanked her past[2] and into the party.A few people made polite noises as they swept by, then the two were cornered by the Prince. Malik swooped up to them, shook the wizard’s hand, nodded at Inga, and started off with a question."I could have sworn I was told you were Thorrin Carpenter? Did the door man err?”“He erred, but that wasn’t the error,” Thorrin explained. He pointed to two bands of metal near the top of his staff. “I was rewarded by some Vikings for a favor I did them.”“Ah. I spent time in Uberwald,” Malik smiled. Thorrin waited patiently for some reason that wasn’t a non-sequitur. “All barbarians, what?” “Oh. I see,” Thorrin said coldly. Malik didn’t seem to notice. “No, I took the name ‘Thorrin the Banded’ to commemorate the high regard of Tharl Eean and her people. And Inga took ‘Inga Cadence Caller’ from the same adventure.”Malik stared as if this time HE couldn’t figure out how the words formed an idea..“You were schooled in Bonk!” Inga interrupted.“Bonk,” he said, correcting her pronunciation.“No, it’s pronounced that way,” she insisted. She slowly said it, “Beeeee-Yoooonnnnk.”“No,” he smiled smugly. “I was there for four years. It’s always been Bonk.”Inga squeaked in frustration. Thorrin rushed in, “Inga grew up in Uberwald,” he warned. Malik blinked. “Who’s Inga?”“The woman you’ve been talking to.”“Woman…?” he sounded confused. “Oh, your compan- GREAT OFFLER THAT’S A SKELETON!”Inga and Thorrin had a moment of telepathic conspiracy. Both turned, looking around wildly, and asking, “Where? WHERE?”Harcourt called for someone to fetch some brandy. Then he pointed directly to one of the staff and sent him specifically to go and explain ‘someone’ to mean ‘someone who isn’t Inga’ to Inga, before she could offer the Prince brandy.The zombie didn’t return for a while, giving the Prince a chance to recover. Henry and Thorrin sat to either side of him in a corner seating arrangement. They sipped their drinks, while the Prince guzzled his.With his mouth shut, or occupied, Thorrin could look the man over. He was about average height for a Klatchian. Not too weathered or scarred, as all the people at the take-aways seemed to be. At least those that talked to the customers, not the kids, cooks, or bouncers.Dark curly hair surrounded a pleasant face, maybe a shade too much kohl around the eyes?“Anyway,” Malik said, sitting up suddenly to resume his discussion. “We have a connection, you know?”“No, really?”“Ali, the subject of your wonderful book.”“Ali the Great?”“The very same. We attended the same school, here in the city.”“Together?” Thorrin asked. “Yes, together! Of course, he was six years ahead of me,” Malik admitted.“At a four-year school,” Harcourt pointed out.Malik ignored him. “Up until Ali went to Djelibeybi to become a necromancer like you.”“You didn’t read my book,” Thorrin realized. “I have people to read for me,” he said dismissively. “And they provide summaries.”“Which you also didn’t read,” Thorrin knew.“Not yet. But once I am the Seriph, I shall prioritize that summary!” He looked around the room for a second. “So, Ali attended a wizard school for only… men, right?”“Men on the right, men on the left, I would assume men all over the campus,” Thorrin said. “We’re much the same at the Unseen University. All male students.”“So, men dealing with men, as it should be,” Malik said. “And a man on the throne here, would be a friend to Ankh-Morpork.”“My Lady knows, we could always use more friends,” Thorrin pretended to agree. Malik nodded and sat back.“If we’re talking about becoming friends, you would, upon gaining the throne, rescind the death penalty for necromancers in Klatch?” Thorrin asked calmly.“I… I would give you special dispensation,” Malik hesitated. “I am not sure my council will allow me to fully retract that edict.”Thorrin shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.” He was glad neither Inga nor Earlinda were there to say something like, ‘the grave-robber’s motto.’They were soon called in to dinner. Thorrin found Inga by the door to the kitchen. She looked morose.[3]“You spoke to the chefs?” he asked.“It’s something local,” she muttered. “And now you’re in the mood for vurst?” he guessed.“The very vurst!” she said angrily. “And when I asked if the ‘local’ food was a Klatchian Hots? He laughed at me!”“Those were invented in Morpork,” he pointed out, taking her elbow and guiding her to their seats. “By Klatchians!” she insisted. “So they’d have been real Klatchian food, right?”The place-cards placed him next to the Prince. He pretended not to notice them and set Inga between him and the idiot. “As I understand it,” he explained. “They were trying to cook traditional food, but an imp infested their kitchen and screwed it up. Everyone was amazed at how popular it turned out to be.”“A Taste Of Sand!” Thorrin looked across the table. The man sitting there was nodding happily. “I have eaten there! They invented the Klatchian Hot. Here, of course, it would be simply A Hot.”“Did you like it?” Inga asked.“Absolutely revolting,” the man said cheerfully. “Probably quite entertaining for Barbarians, but for one used to the wonderful cuisine of Al-Khali…Ah! Dinner!” They all turned as Dinner was served. Several huge platters of seasoned rice and sliced meat were placed on the table, in reach of the diners. In the exact center was a sheep’s head. It had been roasted intact, the eyeballs bulging out of the skull.Before either could move, a server leaned down between Thorrin and Inga. “Lord Harcourt has asked me,” she said softly, “to explain to you that the head is merely a traditional garnish, no one usually eats from it.“I have also been instructed to tell you that if Inga eats one of the eyes while she looks as she looks, she may get the embassy burned down.”The woman nodded politely at them both, then retreated. Thorrin muttered softly, “We’ll call that Plan B, then.” Inga giggled.----- Fatima attended a dinner at the Embassy the next night.“How many people are we going to meet?” Thorrin asked.“The court astrologers have determined the best date to attempt the tomb. We have time until then,” Henry explained. A beat later added, “Just these two here. And a meeting with the Seriph and his advisors in a few days.”“Days wasted,” Inga moaned. “Hey, am I getting per diem?” “You’re getting room and board,” Harcourt replied. “What would the per diem be FOR?”“Pastries is my guess,” Thorrin said. “No, we aren’t getting per diem. We’re independently wealthy, remember?”“Oh. Yeah.” A different group of local businessmen and nobility attended Fatima’s dinner. They kept a wide margin around the woman, leading Thorrin and Inga straight to where she sat.Thorrin thought her a striking woman, looking only slightly older than Malik. But her eyes were much sharper. She reminded him quite a bit of Earlinda. He started wondering where she hid her poison-dart pipes. Before he started introductions she rose and offered her hand. “Thorrin the Banded,” she said in Klatchian. “So nice to meet you.”Then she turned to the zombie and, in fluent Morporkian, said, “And you must be Inga Cadence Caller.” She offered an air kiss to each of Inga’s cheekbones.“Well, THAT was some impressive homework you did,” Thorrin said. She smiled and invited them to sit. “I just like to be prepared.” The conversation continued in the language that included Inga.“I teach for a living,” he told her, though she certainly knew that. “If three of my students are that prepared for the final, I consider it a very successful year."“If I am to be the first woman Seriph, I will have to be much better at it just to survive, much less to accomplish anything.” She glanced at all the powerful people who were not approaching her despite the clear opportunity. “The more prepared I am, the less they have to criticize.”“You’re not wearing a veil,” Inga noticed.“Royalty makes their own rules,” Fatima told her, a small smile showing. “But if I take charge, that’s one thing I will have changed.”“Really?” Inga asked.“Really. The Seriph who set that law liked to look at attractive women, but he hated the idea that men would look at HIS women.” She gave a larger smile. “I have no women to be jealous of.”“Good! I hope you win!” Inga cheered. Fatima’s gaze slewed to Thorrin. “Did you not tell her?”“Tell her what?”“Let us not dissemble, sir. They would have prepared you, and told you I am no friend to Ankh-Morpork.” Thorrin raised an eyebrow, inviting further revelations.“We are at war, sir. Right now, it is fought with gold, not armies, but the strife is not any less for the lack of bloodshed.”Thorrin shrugged. “Financial competition is better for everyone than a war would be. You’re the smartest person I’ve met in a while. You’ve got to be better on the throne than…others.“But,” he said, “I can’t trim the results one way or another. I assume wizards will be watching when I raise Al Kohl Holl? If they detect me swinging the guy’s answers, it’ll be worse than any honest answer could be.”“You are not stupid either, are you?” Fatima said with a small smile. “For a Barbarian from an upstart village on our enemy’s shores.” He shrugged. “I read your book, sir.”“ANOTHER copy sold? I’m very gratified!”“You were quite respectful of Ali The Great, and his homeland. But… There are a few details missing from your account.”“Ali directly attacked our city. He posed a threat no one wants to see again. Our Patrician had a few editorial concerns about the account.”“Ah. And would one be able to get a grasp of what was considered…confidential?”“Nope,” he said. She seemed unsurprised and turned to Inga.“I believe you enjoy travel? Seeing new things?”“Oh, yes!”“I will send someone to take you to the Soak. I am given to understand our bazaar is like Ankh-Morpork’s ‘Shades’ neighborhood, but with pistachios.”“Oooooh!” Inga replied, then turned to her boss. “Unless that’s a bribe?”“Doesn’t matter, you can’t tip the scales, either,” he told her.“Great! We still have a day or two, right?”“The Court Astrologers tell me so,” Fatima said, glancing at the wizard.“What?”“You have…Opinions on a court of the modern age using a star-gazer’s influence, I assume?”“Fatima, some of the best seers at University are from Klatch. And they all teach Klatchian methods for casting horoscopes. For me, astrology is better considered an established tool, like calculus, six-color map theory, or how the tides cause heart attacks.”“You get smarter the longer you sit here,” Fatima said with a small laugh.“I have a question,” Inga asked.“You may at least ask it,” the Princess said.“You said you don’t have any women. If you DO become Seriph, can we come back and see your harem?”Fatima burst out laughing loudly. The whole room turned to stare. “Inga, my sweet, that is the first time anyone has asked about my harem! That is wonderful. I must tell my advisors about this.” The three of them smiled at each other.“So, now you like us? We’re friends?” Ing asked hopefully.“I like you Inga,” Princess Fatima said. “I believe I can work with The Banded, here. Your city-state remains a bitter enemy I must fight with every tool at my disposal.”“Aw!”“Inga! Don’t worry about Ol’ AM,” Thorrin said. “She can take care of herself. Concentrate on the important detail, here.”“Which is?”“You made a friend. Again.”“Yes! That’s right!” She squealed and turned to the Princess. “Would, um… When your person takes me to see the pistachios, would it be more friendly if I wore, well, skin?”“I do not like the dress code, either!” Fatima reminded her. “The only thing I might ask you is to wear a veil, make it clear that you are obeying the letter of the stupid law, if not the intent.”“Oh, can I?” she asked. Thorrin nodded.Then he asked the same question, “Princess, upon gaining the throne, would you rescind the death penalty for necromancers in Klatch?” “We find ourselves importing a specialist from our mortal enemy to solve an internal problem. Without that law, we would have a proper necromancer who worshiped Offler,” she said angrily.“You may take it as granted that I will be removing that threat.” Then she smiled. “So that you can come back freely and show my harem to your butler.”---- The next day, there was a discreet knock on the door to the rooms assigned to them. Which got louder and louder as time went on.Eventually, the maid was forced to open the door and peer inside. The staff had been telling each other horror stories about traveling wizards and their rooms. What practices were performed in them; what was found after they left; what the next guest reported seeing, hearing, or smelling while staying in them.She was terrified but she had her orders.There was nothing untoward in the room except for a small shed. It looked harmless, but so did the log in the river before it rolled over and ate you.She tiptoed across the room, glancing around, hoping for an alternative to knocking. When she almost reached the door, it opened. No one was behind it. Just darkness.Sure that someone was watching, probably laughing at her, she stopped, stood up straight, and put her hands on her hips. “Here, I’d rather quit. I like the job, but I’m not paid for no wizard stuff.”The lights came on within the shed, showing a stable inside that was much too big for the shed’s outside. There was a coffee service on a table near her. She grabbed a spoon and threw it at what she thought might be an illusion. The door slammed shut at the first sound of the spoon striking the floor, then opened slowly. The spoon sat in the middle, unharmed.[4]“Still wizard stuff.” She turned to go.“Coming!” the skeleton’s voice called from inside. “Just a second!” The maid turned to wait. She saw the butler descend a flight of stairs, then run over to the door. “Can I help you?”“There’s a visitor. Um. Miss.”“Oh, I’ll get Thorrin.”“No, Miss, I mean, it’s for you.”“Me?” Inga asked, almost as surprised as she looked.“Your guide for the Soak, I believe.”“Yay! Let me get some money, tell Thorrin I’m going!” She turned and saw the coffee spoon on the floor. “What are you doing there?”“I tossed it,” the maid admitted. “Case the open door was a trap.”“REFUGE!” Inga snapped. “Staff is off limits, same as back home!” She turned to apologize. “Sorry, we think she’s really missed her games with the students.” Then she ran back to the stairs. Alone with the magic house, the maid stared at the spoon ten steps across the stable floor. It seemed to shine very brightly in the stable’s light. “How dumb you think I am?” The door swung shut slowly. When it opened again, the spoon was right at the very lip of the door sill. Feeling a bit silly, she bent down and scooped up the flatware. Then skipped back. She’d seen how fast that door could move. “Thank you… Refuge, was it? Thanks, Refuge.” The guide was in another parlor, this one dominated by an ornate map of the Ankh-Morpork/Klatch trading routes hanging on the wall. She was perusing that.[5]Inga entered and examined her guest. The assessins had spent winter teaching her to assess people’s net worth on sight. She noted the fine clothes, the close tailoring, the complementary and expensive jewelry. A sum appeared in her mind.“Princess Fatima pays her employees very well!” she said.“She does,” the guide agreed. “But I am her daughter.” She held out a hand. “Princess Akilah.” She didn’t flinch as the skeletal grip wrapped around her fingers.“Do we need guards?” Inga asked.“I am a local, and known. I will be safe,” Akilah said. “We should probably get guards for you, though.”“Hmm.” Inga stepped to the fireplace and twisted the iron poker into a torc and wore out around her spine. “Call it ‘fair warning,’ maybe?” “Mother did say I would learn a lot being your guide,” Akilah smiled.“What have you learned already?” Inga asked.The young woman pointed at what used to be a fire poker. “I never quite understood the purpose or use of a fireplace. Until today.”Inga loved the Soak, a confusing maze of stalls, coffee shops, undifferentiated warehouses, poisoners and/or apothecaries[6], butchers, silversmiths, goldsmiths, temples, camel markets, slave markets, and many places where you could sit and relax and soon learn all about the slave market’s acquisition process. And everything was horribly overpriced. “The Soak in Al-Khali is the biggest soaking one can take in the entire world,” Akilah bragged. “You’ve never dragged skulls off the sea floor,” Inga said. "Now that was soaking wet.”Akilah stared. And tried to organize her thoughts into a question. “Was that… Was your necromaster casting a great work that needed skulls?”“You could say that. We couldn’t hire a crew so he went out and made one.”Little beggar children ran up to beg from the ‘pretty foreign lady’ and got as far as ‘Pre-‘ when they remembered it was time to be about ten miles away from wherever the pretty scary lady was.Older children working as shills set out to tell the foreign woman that her hair would look beautiful with their fathers’ scarves or combs or earrings. Or her fingers needed more rings. Or her neck was just crying for the greatest, um, I, um, you see… Something. I forgot what… Um. Hand-made, I remember that. I have to go, now.Akilah didn’t bother to translate any of those.But the silversmith caught both of Inga’s eyes. He had a silver and gold model of the world. The Disc, on Elephants, on Turtle. Features of the continents were visible, cities were jewels, Core Celesti, the Mountain where the Gods lived at the hub was a stunning crystal spire.“How much?” Inga asked. The Princess was too canny to immediately make such an offer, and asked for details, the names of the artists, how many pieces, and so on.The craftsman swore he was the only artist, that it was a solid construction, and note that each elephant was distinct! He named them and pointed them out. He spoke entirely to the Princess, dismissing the foreigner by her clothes the moment they entered his shop.“That’s not Great T’Phon,” Inga said, catching the name in passing.“How do you know?”“He’s got a little scar, right here, just at the tip of the trunk. Well, I say little, but only against the context of a mundusphant, you know.” Akilah translated, then summarized the lengthy rebuttal.“He says he spoke with no less than eight astrologers about the details. He got illustrations from seven books.”“Astrologers look up. I went…there,” she tapped a fingernail to a spot on the rim. “And looked down.” She looked at the Princess. “It’s in the book.”“What book?”“The Incredible Life of Ali the Great and-““You’re THAT Inga!?!?”“Mom didn’t tell you?”“Mother said your boss wrote a book… I didn’t realize it was a memoir!” She turned to the vendor. “She knows what she’s talking about! She’s gone to see the elephant!”“Why,” he asked, “would I take the word of a foreign person hiding behind a glamour, over that of our best skygazers? I ask you!”“He says you’re an illusion.”“Does he have a ribbon? I can thread it through my ribs and he can pull on it, see how good the illusion stands up.”“He will not willingly participate in your illusionary tactics,” Akilah translated.“Ah. Hmm. How would Helga have handled this? Aha!” She grabbed the merchant’s nose to hold him in place. Then she opened her shirt. Taking his hand, she shoved it into the space below her ribs so he could feel her spine. Then pulled at his elbow, lifting his hand up along her ribs until it was visible above her collar. She looked at the shopkeeper kneeling before her. “Ask him how many fingers I’m holding up?”When the Princess could finally understand the rapid babbling, she said, “He would like to offer you a very severe discount on the Discpiece, since it fails so badly to satisfy the knowledgeable nice lady, With free delivery to wherever it is that you are staying, but he must have his hand back to write the instructions for the deliverymen, thank you so very much, mistress. And, oh yes, five fingers, may Bastet be praised.”“Bastet? Not Offler?” Inga asked as she released her accuser.“There are about 3000 religions on the Klatch continent,” Akilah said conversationally, while the smith was screaming at his sons to get them ready to quickly carry a purchase to the Embassy. After he took a moment for a little bit of a nervous breakdown in the back of the store, he returned to the front to discuss the final price, delivery included. He named a number and Akilah repeated it in Morporkian.“That’s quite a discount,” Inga observed. “You did make quite an attractive first offer.”“I did? When?”“When you gave him back his hand. Time is money, you know, as are fingers in some cases.”“Ah. Well, I was going to offer his asking price, anyway.”Akilah could see that the man was terrified that he hadn’t offered a sufficient discount and accepted the half-price offer in Inga’s name. They then went to find some pistachios. The nuts were available roasted in several different spices. Inga bought the Princess a bag, and bought herself every single flavor.Then they found a place for coffee and sat to enjoy the drink with the nuts. Akilah stared. “You are not eating anything. Just smelling everything than making happy zombie sounds.”“I am eating everything!” She explained the metaphysical transactions in progress. Akilah stared. “And the best part is, nothing goes from my lips to my hips this way!” Akilah stared, her mouth hanging open. “Because I don’t have lips,” Inga explained. “Or hips? You’re not laughing.”“I am astounded, Inga. Can I come with you?” “You’re the one showing me around, Princess. Don’t you…HAVE to come with me?”“Into the tomb. Mother needs an agent to observe that there is not the hankpan. I wish to be the one to observe you in the tomb.”“Do you mean hanky panky?” She thought about it. “I can’t say yes or no, but if your mother says yes, Thorrin will probably not say no. Why do you want to come into an icky, lethal tomb?”“You are so new.”“New? Sweetie, I’m a hundred years old. Most of it dead.”“I’ve never imagined anyone like you. There are new ideas and new ways to think about things every time you open your mouth. I mean, when your jaw… I mean, I mean…”“I understand,” Inga said. “And I’m smiling, you should know. Well, ask. I’m certainly in favor.” She lowered what she was using as her voice to say, “And Thorrin never wins those arguments.”---- Five miles away from the Soak, Thorrin had found a biography of Al Kohl Holl. He’d skipped to the end for the description of the tomb. The word ‘lethal,’ or a synonym, came up about four times every page of that chapter.“Greeeeeeeeeeeat,” he muttered. “Hope I don’t like anyone that’s going in there with us.” [1] And studiously ignoring the conversation of a skeleton complaining about her skull. [2] Or, really, applied pressure in a non-verbal instruction, hopefully optimistic that she’d acquiesce. [3] Not that skeletons typically look all that chipper. Chipped, maybe, depending on how they died. [4] Refuge was not completely innocent in the matter of University students found trapped within. They had started it, but she really came to enjoy finishing it. [5] Klatch was across the Circle Sea from Ankh-Morpork. The Sea Route for trade cut straight across the water. The Land Route followed the shore through six other countries. The guide was politely pretending to be absorbed in a fat letter D. [6] Not completely interchangeable, but in some of them it depended on how the pharmacist’s day was going.

Thorrin takes Inga as his butler on a trip to Klarch on University business.

Trying to comply with the local laws, Inga will not wear a vail, but her wizard figures out how to make it so that no one sees her flesh.