The Colour of Magic   ::   Пратчетт Терри

And in the Broken Drum Rincewind was listening open-mouthed as Twoflower talked.

“So I decided to see for myself,” the little man was saying. “Eight years’ saving up, this has cost me. But worth every half-rhinu. I mean, here I am. In Ankh-Morpork. Famed in song and story, I mean. In the streets that have known the tread of Hemic Whiteblade. Hrun the Barbarian, and Bravd the Hublander and the Weasel… It’s all just like I imagined, you know.”

Rincewind’s face was a mask of fascinated horror.

“I just couldn’t stand it any more back in Des Pelargic,” Twoflower went on blithely, “sitting at a desk all day, just adding up columns of figures, just a pension to look forward to at the end of it… where’s the romance in that? Twoflower, I thought, it’s now or never. You don’t just have to listen to stories. You can go there. Now’s the time to stop hanging around the docks listening to sailors’ tales. So I compiled a phrase book and bought a passage on the next ship to the Brown Islands.”

“No guards?” murmured Rincewind.

“No. Why? What have I got that’s worth stealing?”

Rincewind coughed. “You have, uh, gold,” he said.

“Barely two thousand rhinu. Hardly enough to keep a man alive for more than a month or two. At home, that is. I imagine they might stretch a bit further here.”

“Would a rhinu be one of those big gold coins?” said Rincewind.

“Yes.” Twoflower looked worriedly at the wizard over the top of his strange seeing-lenses. “Will two thousand be sufficient, do you think?”

“Yarrrt,” croaked Rincewind. “I mean, yes sufficient. “

“Good.”

“Um. Is everyone in the Agatean Empire as rich as you?”

“Me? Rich? Bless you, whatever put that idea into your head? “I am but a poor clerk! Did I pay the innkeeper too much, do you think?” Twoflower added.

“Uh. He might have settled for less,” Rincewind conceded.

“Ah. I shall know better next time. I can see I have a lot to learn. An idea occurs to me. Rincewind would you perhaps consent to be employed as a, I don’t know, perhaps the word “guide” would fit the circumstances? I think I could afford to pay you a rhinu a day.”

Rincewind opened his mouth to reply but felt the words huddle together in his throat, reluctant to emerge in a world that was rapidly going mad. Twoflower blushed.

“I have offended you,” he said. it was an impertinent request to make of a professional man such as yourself.