Terry Pratchett - Jingo (Discworld, #21)

I t was a moonless night, which was good for the purposes of Solid Jackson.

He fished for Curious Squid, so called because, as well as being squid, they were curious. That is to say, their curiosity was the curious thing about them.

Shortly after they got curious about the lantern that Solid had hung over the stern of his boat, they started to become curious about the way in which various of their number suddenly vanished skyward with a splash.

Some of them even became curiousvery briefly curiousabout the sharp barbed thing that was coming very quickly toward them.

The Curious Squid were extremely curious. Unfortunately, they werent very good at making connections.

It was a very long way to this fishing ground, but for Solid the trip was usually well worth it. The Curious Squid were very small, harmless, difficult to find and reckoned by connoisseurs to have the foulest taste of any creature in the world. This made them very much in demand in a certain kind of restaurant where highly skilled chefs made, with great care, dishes containing no trace of the squid whatsoever .

Solid Jacksons problem was that tonight, a moonless night in the spawning season, when the squid were especially curious about everything, the chef seemed to have been at work on the sea itself.

There was not a single interested eyeball to be seen. There werent any other fish either, and usually there were a few attracted to the light. Hed caught sight of one. It had been making through the water extremely fast in a straight line.

He laid down his trident and walked to the other end of the boat, where his son Les was also gazing intently at the torch-lit sea.

Not a thing in half an hour, said Solid.

You sure were in the right spot, Dad?

Solid squinted at the horizon. There was a faint glow in the sky that indicated the city of Al-Khali, on the Klatchian coast. He turned round. The other horizon glowed, too, with the lights of Ankh-Morpork. The boat bobbed gently halfway between the two.

Course we are, he said, but certainty edged away from his words.

Because there was a hush on the sea. It didnt look right. The boat rocked a little, but that was with their movement, not from any motion of the waves.

It felt as if there was going to be a storm. But the stars twinkled softly and there was not a cloud in the sky.

The stars twinkled on the surface of the water, too. Now that was something you didnt often see.

I reckon we ought to be getting out of here, Solid said.

Les pointed at the slack sail. Whatre we going to use for wind, Dad?

It was then that they heard the splash of oars.

Solid, squinting hard, could just make out the shape of another boat, heading toward him. He grabbed his boat-hook.

I knows thats you, you thieving foreign bastard!

The oars stopped. A voice sang over the water.

May you be consumed by a thousand devils, you damned person!

The other boat glided closer. It looked foreign, with eyes painted on the prow.

Fished em all out, have you? Ill take my trident to you, you bottomfeedin scum that yare!

My curvy sword at your neck, you unclean son of a dog of the female persuasion!

Les looked over the side. Little bubbles fizzed on the surface of the sea.

Dad? he said.

Thats Greasy Arif out there! snapped his father. You take a good look at him! Hes been coming out here for years, stealing our squid, the evil lying little devil!

Dad, theres

You get on them oars and Ill knock his black teeth out!

Les could hear a voice saying from the other boat, see, my son, how the underhanded fish thief

Row! his father shouted.

To the oars! shouted someone in the other boat.

Whose squid are they, Dad? said Les.

Ours!

What, even before weve caught them?

Just you shut up and row!

I cant move the boat, Dad, were stuck on something!

Its a hundred fathoms deep here, boy! Whats there to stick on?

Les tried to disentangle an oar from the thing rising slowly out of the fizzing sea.

Looks like aa chicken, Dad!

There was a sound from below the surface. It sounded like some bell or gong, slowly swinging.

Chickens cant swim!

Its made of iron, Dad!

Solid scrambled to the rear of the boat.

It was a chicken, made of iron. Seaweed and shells covered it and water dripped off it as it rose against the stars.

It stood on a cross-shaped perch.

There seemed to be a letter on each of the four ends of the cross.

Solid held the torch closer.

What the

Then he pulled the oar free and sat down beside his son.

Row like the blazes, Les!

Whats happening, Dad?

Shut up and row! Get us away from it!

Is it a monster, Dad?

Its worse than a monster, son! shouted Solid, as the oars bit into the water.

The thing was quite high now, standing on some kind of towerWhat is it, Dad! What is it?

Its a damned weathercock!

There was not, on the whole, a lot of geological excitement. The sinking of continents is usually accompanied by volcanoes, earthquakes and armadas of little boats containing old men anxious to build pyramids and mystic stone circles in some new land where being the possessor of genuine ancient occult wisdom might be expected to attract girls. But the rising of this one caused barely a ripple in the purely physical scheme of things. It more or less sidled back, like a cat whos been away for a few days and knows youve been worrying.

Around the shores of the Circle Sea a large wave, only five or six feet high by the time it reached them, caused some comment. And in some of the very low-lying swamp areas the water swamped some villages of people that no one else cared about very much. But in a purely geological sense, nothing very much happened.

In a purely geological sense.

Its a city , Dad! Look, you can see all the windows and

I told you to shut up and keep rowing!

The seawater surged down the streets. On either side, huge, weed-encrusted buildings boiled slowly out of the surf.

Father and son fought to keep some way on the boat as it was dragged along. And, since lesson one in the art of rowing is that you do it while looking the wrong way, they didnt see the other boat

You lunatic!

Foolish man!

Dont you touch that building! This country belongs to Ankh-Morpork!

The two boats spun in a temporary whirlpool.

I claim this land in the name of the Seriph of Al-Khali!

We saw it first! Les, you tell him we saw it first!

We saw it first before you saw it first!

Les, you saw him, he tried to hit me with that oar!

But Dad, youre waving that trident

See the untrustworthy way he attacks us, Akhan!

There was a grinding noise from under the keel of both boats and they began to tip as they settled into the sea-bottom ooze.

Look, Father, there is an interesting statue

He has set his foot on Klatchian soil! The squid thief!

Get those filthy sandals off Ankh-Morporkian territory!

Oh, Dad

The two fishermen stopped screaming at each other, mainly in order to get their breath back. Crabs scuttled away. Water drained between the patches of weed, carving runnels in the gray silt.

Father, look, theres still colored tiles on the

Mine!

Mine!

Les caught Akhans eye. They exchanged a very brief glance which was nevertheless modulated with a considerable amount of information, beginning with the sheer galactic-sized embarrassment of having parents and working up from there.