Interesnye vremena (Ploskij mir)

Of exploits of: - daring barbarians on a quest for something that no barbarian has quested before, - information autocrats, manipulating and defusing the protest, - lady Luck, world’s least wizzardly wizzard and… Butterflies.

“We sent the message,” said the visitor. “No one saw us.” [..] “I don’t understand, o lord,” said the visitor, whose name was Two Fire Herb.

“Good.”

“[..] they believe in the Great Wizzard and you want him to come here?”

“Oh, certainly. I have my…people in”—he tried the alien syllables—“Ankh-More-Pork. The one so foolishly called the Great Wizzard does exist. But, I might tell you, he is renowned for being incompetent, cowardly, and spineless. Quite proverbially so. So I think the Red Army should have their leader, don’t you? It will…raise their morale.” He smiled again. “This is politics,” he said.

“The Great Wizard will come. We sent the message, at great personal risk.”

“How will we know when he arrives?”

“If he’s the Great Wizard, we’ll hear about it. And then—”

“Gently Push Over The Forces Of Repression!” they chorused.

Two Fire Herb looked at the rest of the cadre. “Exactly,” he said. “And then, comrades, we must strike at the very heart of the rottenness. We must storm the Winter Palace!”

There was silence from the cadre. Then someone said, “Excuse me, Two Fire Herb, but it is June.”