Ankh Morpork Rickshaw Ride

Written with a bow to Sir Terry Pratchett.

Agnes Drumwheel steered her rickshaw through the Ankh-Morpork drizzle, the cobbles slicker than a troll’s belly after a particularly juicy troll pie. Lightning lit up the puddles, momentarily illuminating the scowling face of her passenger. He was a lanky lad, hair the colour of unwashed socks, and a beard that looked like it had wrestled a badger and lost.

“So where to, then?” Agnes rumbled, her voice a healthy counterpoint to the rumbling thunder.

The lad shrugged, a flicker of something familiar in his sky-blue eyes. “Dunno, really. Just…anywhere but here, I suppose.”

Agnes snorted, a sound that could curdle milk. “Everyone’s got a ‘just anywhere’ these days. Where’d you hear that tune, anyway?”

“What tune?”

Agnes blinked. “The one in yer head, obviously. Sounds like a particularly mournful banshee with a head cold.”

The lad flinched. “Oh, that. Tangled Up in Something, I think. Heard it back in Uberwald. Bunch of wizards were playing it around a campfire. Said it was about love and stuff.”

Agnes snorted again. “Love? Wizards? Sounds like a recipe for a troll-induced stomach ache. Love’s like a gremlin in your boot — cute at first, then chews all your laces and leaves you…