The Carpet People Read Online Free PDF Page A

half so easily. Oh, I know it's useless to say all this," he added, catching Bane's grin, "but I wish that the people who sing about the deeds of heroes would think about the people who have to clear up after them."
    He held up his herb bag. "And with this," he said. "Just different types of dust, a few useful plants. That's not medicine. That's just a way of keeping people amused while they're ill. We've lost such a lot."
    "You said that before," said Snibril. "What have we lost?"
    "Knowledge. Proper medicine. Books. Carpography. People get lazy. Empires, too. If you don't look after knowledge, it goes away. Look at this." He threw down what looked like a belt, made up of seven different coloured squares, linked together with thongs.
    "That was made by wights. Go on ... ask me."
    "I think I've heard them mentioned ... wights?" said Snibril obediently.
    "You see? A tribe. In the old days. The tribe. The first Carpet people. The ones who crossed the Tiles and brought back fire. They quarried wood at the Woodwall. They found out how to melt varnish off achairleg. Don't see them so much nowadays, but they used to be around a lot, pushing these big varnish-boilers from tribe to tribe, it's amazing the stuff they could make out of it ... Anyway, they used to make these belts. Seven different substances, you see. Carpet hair, bronze from the High Gate Land, varnish, wood, dust, sugar and grit. Every wight had to make one."
    "Why?"
    "To prove they could. Mysticism. Of course, that was long ago. I haven't seen wights for years. And now their belts turn up as collars on these ... things. We've lost so much. We wrote too much down, and forgot it." He shook his head. "I'm going to have a nap. Wake me up when we leave." He wandered off to one of the carts and pulled a blanket over his head.
    "What did he mean?" said Snibril.
    "A nap." said Bane. "It's like a short sleep."
    "I mean about writing down too much. Who wrote down too much? What does that mean?"
    For the first time since Snibril had met him, Bane looked uncomfortable.
    "That's up to him to tell you," he said. "Everyone has ... things they remember."
    Snibril watched him patting Roland absently on the muzzle. Who was Bane, if it came to that? He seemed to generate a feeling that made it hard to ask. He looked like a wild man, but there was something about him ... It seemed to Snibril that if a pot that was about to boil over had arms and legs, that would be Bane. Every move he made was deliberate and careful, as if he'd rehearsed it beforehand. Snibril wasn't sure if Bane was a friend. He hoped so. He'd be a terrible enemy.
    He lay back with the belt in his lap and thought of wights. Eventually he slept. At least, it seemed like sleep, but he thought that he could still hear the camp around him and see the outline of Burnt End across the clearing. But he wondered afterwards. It seemed like a dream. He saw, in a little blurred picture hanging in the smoke-scented air, the Carpet. He was flying through the hairs, well above the dust. It was night-time and very dark although, oddly enough, he could see quite clearly. He drifted over grazing herds, a group of hooded figures-wights!-pushing a cart, a sleeping village ... and then, as if he had been drawn to this spot, to a tiny figure walking among the hairs. As he drifted down towards it, it became a person, all in white. Everything about it was white. It turned and looked up at him, the first creature he had seen who seemed to know he was there ... and he sank towards those pale, watchful eyes ...
    He woke suddenly, and the picture faded, while he sat up clutching the seven squares tightly in both hands.
    A little later they broke camp, with Pismire driving the leading cart.
    Glurk lay inside, white and shaken but strong enough to curse colourfully every time they went over a bump. Sometimes Fray rumbled far off in the south.
    Bane and Snibril, now wearing the belt around his waist, rode on ahead.
    The Carpet was changing colour.