The COLOUR OF MAGIC

Terry Pratchett

 THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

PROLOGUE

In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . .

See . . .

Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination.  In a brain bigger than a city, with geological
Slowness, He thinks only of the Weight. Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and  startanned shoulders the disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven.

Astropsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about. The Great Turtle was a mere hypothesis until the day the small and secretive kingdom of Krull, whose rim-most mountains project out over the Rimfall, built a gantry 'and pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous crag and lowered several observers over the Edge in a  quartz windowed brass vessel to peer through the mist veils.
The early astrozoologists, hauled back from their long dangle by enormous teams of slaves, were able to bring back much information about the shape and nature of A'Tuin and the elephants but this did not resolve fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of the universe. For example, what was Atuin's actual sex? This vital question, said the Astrozoologists with mounting authority, would not be answered until a larger and more powerful gantry was constructed for a deep-space vessel. In the meantime they could only speculate about the revealed cosmos. There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics.
An alternative, favoured by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis. Thus it was that a young cosmochelonian of the Steady Gait faction, testing a new telescope with which he hoped to make measurements of the precise albedo of Great A'Tuin's right eye, was on this eventful evening the first outsider to see the smoke rise hubward from the burning of the oldest city in the world.
Later that night he became so engrossed in his studies he completely forgot about it. Nevertheless, he was the first. There were others . . .

THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

Fire roared through the bifurcated city of AnkhMorpork. Where it licked the Wizards' Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth colour, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the vats and oil stores all along Merchants Street it progressed in a series of blazing fountainS and explosions; in the Streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God.
By now' the whole of downtown Morpork was alight, and the richer and worthier citizens of Ankh on the far bank were bravely responding to the situation by feverishly demolishing the bridges. But already the ships in the Morpork docks – laden with grain, cotton and timber, and coated with tar - were blazing merrily and, their moorings burnt to ashes, were breasting the river Ankh on the ebb tide, igniting riverside palaces and bowers as they drifted like drowning fireflies towards the sea. In any case, sparks were riding the breeze and touching down far across the river in hidden gardens and remote rickyards. The smoke from the merry burning rose miles high, in a wind-sculpted black column 'that could be seen across the whole of the discworld. It was certainly impressive from the cool, dark hilltop a few leagues away, where two figures were watching with considerable interest. The taller of the pair was chewing on a chicken leg and leaning on a sword that was only Marginally shorter than the average man. If it wasn't for the air of wary intelligence about him it might have been supposed that he was a barbarian from the hubland wastes. His partner was much shorter and wrapped from head to toe in a brown cloak. Later, when he has occasion to move, it will be seen that he moves lightly, cat-like.
The two had barely exchanged a word in the last twenty minutes except for a short and inconclusive argument as to whether a particularly powerful explosion had been the oil bond store or the workshop of Kerible the Enchanter. Money hinged on the fact. Now the big man finished gnawing at the bone and tossed it into the grass, smiling ruefully. "There go all those little alleyways,' he said. "I liked them.'
"All the treasure houses,' said the small man. He added thoughtfully, "Do gems burn, I wonder? 'Tis said they're kin to coal.' "All the gold, melting and running down the gutters,' said the big one, ignoring him. "And all the wine, boiling in the barrels.' "There were rats,' said his brown companion. "Rats, I'll grant you.' 'it was no place to be in high summer.' "That, too. One can't help feeling, though, a well, a momentary-' He trailed off, then brightened. "We owed old Fredor at the Crimson Leech eight silver pieces,' he added. The little man nodded.
They were silent for a while as a whole new series of explosions carved a red line across a hitherto dark section of the greatest city in the world. Then the big man stirred "Weasel?'
"Yes?'
"I wonder who started it?'
The small swordsman known as the Weasel said nothing. He was watching the road in the ruddy light. Few had come that way since the widershins gate had been one of the first to colapse in a shower of white-hot embers.
But two were coming up it now. The Weasel's eyes always at their sharpest in gloom and 
halflight, made out the shapes of two mounted men
and some sort of low beast behind them. Doubtless
a rich merchant escaping with as much treasure as
he could lay frantic hands on. The Weasel said as
much to his companion, who sighed.
"The status of footpad ill suits us,' said the

barbarian, "but as you say, times are hard and
there are no soft beds tonight.'
He shifted his grip on his sword and, as the
leading rider drew near, stepped out onto the road
with a hand held up and his face set in a grin
nicely calculated to reassure yet threaten.
"Your pardon, sir-' he began.
The rider reined in his horse and drew back his
hood. The big man looked into a face blotched with
superficial burns and punctuated by tufts of singed
beard. Even the eyebrows had gone.
"Bugger off,' said the face. "You're Bravd the
Hublander, aren't you?'

*The shape and cosmology of the disc system are
perhaps worthy of note at this point.
There are, of course, two major directions on the diSC:
Hubward and Rimward. But since the disc itself revolves
at the rate of once every eight hundred days (in order to
distribute the weight fairly upon its supportive 
pachyderms, according to Reforgule of Krull) there are also two
lesser directions, which are Turnwise and Widdershins.
Since the disc's tiny orbiting sunlet maintains a fixed
orbit while the majestic disc turns slowly beneath it, it
will be readily deduced that a disc year consists of not
four but eight seasons. The summers are those times
when the sun rises or sets at the nearest point on the
Rim, the winters those occasions when it rises or sets at
a point around ninety degrees along the circumference.
Thus, in the lands around the Circle Sea, the year
begins on Hogs' Watch Night, progresses through a
Spring Prime to its first midsummer (Small Gods' Eve)
which is followed by Autumn Prime and, straddling the
half-year point of Crueltide, Winter Secundus (also
known as the Spindlewinter, since at this time the sun
rises in the direction of spin). Then comes Secundus
Spring with Summer Two on its heels, the three quarter
mark of the year being the night of Alls Fallow - the one
night of the year, according to legend, when witches and
warlocks stay in bed. Then drifting leaves and frosty
nights drag on towards Backspindlewinter and a new
Hogs' Watch Night nestling like a frozen jewel at its
heart.
Since the Hub is never closely warmed by the weak sun
the lands there are locked in permafrost. The Rim, on the
other hand, is a region of sunny islands and balmy days
There are, of course, eight days in a disc week and eight
colours in its light spectrum. Eight is a number of some
considerable occult significance on the disc and must
never, ever, be spoken by a wizard.
Precisely why all the above should be so is not clear, but
goes some way to explain why, on the disc, the Gods are
not so much worshipped as blamed.
Bravd became aware that he had fumbled the
initiatiVe.
"Just go away, will you?' said the rider. 'I just
haven't got time for you, do you understand?'
He looked around and added: "That goes for your
shadow-loving fleabag partner too, wherever he's
hiding.'
The Weasel stepped up to the horse and peered at
the dishevelled figure.
'Why, it's Rincewind the wizard, isn't it?' he said
in tones of delight, meanwhile filing the wizard's
description of him in his memory for leisurely
vengeance. 'I thought I recognized the voice.'
Bravd spat and sheathed his sword. It was
seldom worth tangling with wizards, they so rarely
had any treasure worth speaking of.
"he talks pretty big for a gutter wizard,' he
muttered.
"You don't understand at all,' said the wizard
wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned
to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose
of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that
then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you.'
The Weasel pointed towards the burning city.
'You've been through that?' he asked.
The wizard rubbed a red'-raw hand across his
eyes. 'i was there when it started. See him? Back
there?' He pointed back down the road to where his
travelling companion was still approaching, 
having adopted a method of riding that involved
falling out of the saddle every few seconds.
'Well?' said Weasel.
"he started it,' said Rincewind simply.
Bravd and Weasel looked at the figure, now
hopping across the road with one foot in a stirrup.
"Fire-raiser, is he?' said Bravd at last.
'No,' said Rincewind. "Not precisely. Let's just
say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning,
then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a
thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and
Shouting "All gods are bastards". Got any food?'
"There's some chicken,' said Weasel. "in exchange
for a story.' "What's his name?' said Bravd, who tended to

lag behind in conversations.
' Twoflower . '
"Twoflower?' said Bravd. "What a funny name.'
`You,' said' Rincewind, dismounting, "do not
know the half of it. Chicken, you say?'
"Devilled,' said Weasel. The wizard groaned.
'That reminds me,' added the Weasel, snapping
hiS fingers, "there was a really big explosion about,
oh, half an hour ago'
'That was the oil bond store going up,' said
Rincewind, wincing at the memory of the burning
rain.
Weasel turned and grinned expectantly at his
companion, who grunted and handed over a coin
from his pouch. Then there was a Scream from the
roadway, cut off abruptly. Rincewind did not look
up from his chicken.
"one of the things he can't do, he can't ride a
horse,' he said. Then he stiffened as if sandbagged
by a sudden recollection, gave a small yelp of terror
and dashed into the gloom. When he returned, the
being called Twoflower was hanging limply over
his shoulder. It was small and skinny, and dressed
very oddly in a pair of knee length britches and a
shirt in such a violent and vivid conflict of colours
that Weasel's fastidious eye was offended even in
the half-light.
"No bones broken, by the feel of things,' said
Rincewind. He was breathing heavily. Bravd winked
at the Weasel and went to investigate the shape
that they assumed was a pack animal.
'You'd be wise to forget it,' said the wizard,
without looking up from his examination of the
unconscious Twoflower. "Believe me. A power 
protects it.'
"A spell?' said Weasel, squatting down.
'No-oo. 'But magic of a kind, I think. Not the
usual sort. I mean, it can turn gold into copper
while at the same time it is still gold, it makes men
rich by destroying their possessions, it allows the
weak to walk fearlessly among thieves, it passes
through the strongest doors to leach the most
protected treasuries. Even now it has me enslaved
- so that I must follow this madman willynilly and
protect him from harm. It's stronger than you,
Bravd. It is, I think, more cunning even than you,
Weasel.'
"What is it called then, this mighty magic?'
Rincewind shrugged. "in our tongue it is
reflected-sound-as-of-underground-spirits. Is there
any wine?'
"You must know that I am not without artifice

where magic is concerned,' said Weasel. "only last
year did i- assisted by my friend there - part the
notoriously powerful Archmage of Ymitury from
his staff, his belt of moon jewels and his life, in
that approximate order. I do not fear this 
reflectedsound-of-underground-spirits of which you speak.
However,' he added, "you engage my interest.
Perhaps you would care to tell me more?'
Bravd looked at the shape on the road. It was
closer now, and clearer in the pre-dawn light. It
looked for all the world like 
a"A box on legs?' he said.
"i'll tell you about it,' said Rincewind. "if there's

any wine, that is.'
Down in the valley there was a roar and a hiss.
Someone more thoughtful than the rest had ordered
to be shut the big river gates that were at the point
where the Ankh flowed out of the twin city. Denied
its usual egress, the river had burst its banks and
was pouring down the fire-ravaged streets. Soon
the continent of flame became a series of islands,
each one growing smaller as the dark tide rose.
And up from the city of fumes and smoke rose a
broiling cloud of steam, covering the stars. Weasel
thought that it looked like some dark fungus or
mushroom.

The twin city of proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork,
of which all the other cities of time and space are,
as it were, mere reflections, has stood many
asSaults in its long and crowded history and has
always risen to flourish again. So the fire and its
Subsequent flood, which destroyed everything left
that was not flammable and added a particularly
noisome flux to the survivors' problems, did not
mark its end. Rather it was a fiery punctuation
mark, a coal-like comma, or salamander 
semicolon, in a continuing story.
Several days before these events a ship came up
the Ankh on the dawn tide and fetched up, among
many others, in the maze of wharves and docks on
the Morpork shore. It carried a cargo of pink
pearls, milk-nuts, pumice, some official letters for
the Patrician of Ankh, and a man.
It was the man who engaged the attention of
Blind Hugh, one of the beggars on early duty at
Pearl Dock. He nudged Cripple Wa in the ribs, and
pointed wordlessly.
Now the stranger was standing on the quayside
watching several straining seamen carry a large
brass-bound chest down the gangplank. Another
man, obviously the captain, was standing beside
him. There was about the seaman - every nerve in
Blind Hugh's body, which tended to vibrate in the
presence of even a small amount of impure gold at
fifty paces, screamed into his brain - the air of one
anticipating imminent enrichment.
Sure enough, when the chest had been deposited
on the cobbles, the stranger reached into a pouch
and there was the flash of a coin. Several coins
Gold. Blind Hugh, his body twanging like a hazel
rod in the presence of water, whistled to himself.
Then he nudged Wa again, and sent him scurrying
off down a nearby alley into the heart of the city.
When the captain walked back onto his ship,
leaving the newcomer looking faintly bewildered
on the quayside, Blind Hugh snatched up his
begging cup and made his way across the street
with an ingratiating leer. At the sight of him the
stranger started to fumble urgently with his money
pouch.
"Good day to thee, sire,' Blind Hugh began, and
found himself looking up into a face with four eyes
in it. He turned to run!
"!' said the stranger, and grabbed his arm. Hugh
was aware that the sailors lining the rail of the
ship were laughing at him. At the same time his
specialised senses detected an overpowering 
impression of money. He froze. The stranger let go and
quickly thumbed through a small black book he
had taken from his belt. Then he said "Hallo.'
"What?' said Hugh. The man looked blank.
"Hallo?' he repeated, rather louder than necessary
and so carefully that Hugh could hear the vowels
tinkling into place.
"Hallo yourself,' Hugh riposted. The stranger

smiled widely fumbled yet again in the pouch. This
time his hand came out holding a large gold coin. It
was in fact slightly larger than an 8,000-dollar
Ankhian crown and the design on it was unfamiliar,
but it spoke inside Hugh's mind in a language he
understood perfectly. My current owner, it said, is
in need of succour and assistance; why not give it
to him, so you and me can go off somewhere and
enjoy ourselves?
Subtle changes in the beggar's posture made the
stranger feel more at ease. He consulted the small
book again.
"i wish to be directed to an hotel, tavern, lodging
house, inn, hospice, caravanserai,' he said.
'What, all of them?' said Hugh, taken aback.
"?' said the stranger.

Hugh was aware that a small crowd of fishwives,
shellfish diggers and freelance gawpers were 
watching them with interest.
"look,' he said, "i know a good tavern, is that
enough?' He shuddered to think of the gold coin
escaping from his life. He'd keep that one, even if
Ymor confiscated all the rest. And the big chest
that comprised most of the newcomer's luggage
looked to be full of gold, Hugh decided.
The four-eyed man looked at his book.
I would like to be directed to an hotel, place of
repose, tavern, a-'
"yes, all right. Come on then,' said Hugh hurriedly.
He picked up one of the bundles and walked away
quickly. The stranger, after a moment's hesitation,
strolled after him.
A train of thought shunted its way through
Hugh's mind. Getting the newcomer to the Broken
Drum so easily was a stroke of luck, no doubt of it,
and Ymor would probably reward him. But for all
his new acquaintance's mildness there was 
something about him that made Hugh uneasy, and for
the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was.
Not the two extra eyes, odd though they were.
There was something else. He glanced back.
The little man was ambling along in the middle
of the street, looking around him with an 
expression of keen interest.
Something else Hugh saw nearly made him
gibber.
The massive wooden chest, which he had last
seen resting solidly on the quayside, was following
on its master's heels with a gentle rocking gait.
Slowly, in case a sudden movement on his part
might break his fragile control over his own legs,
Hugh bent slightly so that he could see under the
chest.
There were lots and lots of little legs.
Very deliberately, Hugh turned around and
walked very carefully towards the Broken Drum.

"Odd,' said Ymor.
"He had this big wooden chest,' added Cripple
Wa.
'He'd have to be a merchant or a spy,' said Ymor.
He pulled a scrap of meat from the cutlet in his
hand and tossed it into the air. It hadn't reached
the zenith of its arc ,before a black shape detached
itself from the shadows in the corner of the room
and swooped down, taking the morsel in mid-air.
"A merchant or a spy,' repeated Ymor. "i'd prefer

a spy. A spy pays for himself twice, because there's
always the reward when we turn him in. What do
you think, Withel?'
Opposite Ymor the second greatest thief in 
Ankhmorpork half-closed his one eye and shrugged.
"i've checked on the ship,' he said. "it's a freelance

trader. Does the occasional run to the Brown
islands. People there are just savages. They don't
understand about spies and I expect they eat
merchants . '
"He looked a bit like a merchant,' volunteered

Wa. "Except he wasn't fat.'
There was a flutter of wings at the window. Ymor
shifted his bulk out of the chair and crossed the
room, coming back with a large raven. After he'd
unfastened the message capsule from its leg it flew

to join its fellows lurking among the rafters.
Withel regarded it without love. Ymor's ravens were
notoriously loyal to their master, to the extent that
Withel's one attempt to promote himself to the rank
of greatest thief in Ankh-Morpork had cost their
master's right hand man his left eye. But not his
life, however. Ymor never grudged a man hiS
ambitions.
"Gc?,' said Ymor, tossing the little phial aside and
unrolling the tiny scroll within.
"Gorrin the Cat,' said Withel automatically. "On
station up in the gong tower at the Temple of Small
GodS.'
he says Hugh has taken our stranger to the
Broken Drum. Well, that's good enough. Broadman
is a - friend of ours, isn't he?'
'Aye,' said Withel. "if he knows what's good for
trade.'
"Among his customers has been your man
Gorrin,' said Ymor pleasantly, "for he writes here
about a box on legs, if i read this scrawl correctly.'
He looked at Withel over the top of the paper.
Withel looked away. 'He will be disciplined,' he
said flatly. Wa looked at the man leaning back in
his chair, his black-clad frame resting as 
nonchalantly as a Rimland puma on a jungle branch, and
decided that Gorrin atop Small Gods temple would
soon be joining those little deities in the multifold
dimensions of Beyond. And he owed Wa three
copper pieces.
Ymor crumpled the note and tossed it into a
corner. "i think we'll wander along to the Drum later
on, Withel. Perhaps, too, we may try this beer that
your men find so tempting.'
Withel said nothing. Being Ymor's right-hand
man was like being gently flogged to death with
scented bootlaces.

The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the
cities bounding the Circle Sea, was as a matter of
course the home of a large number of gangs, thieves'
guilds, syndicates and similar organisations. This
was one of the reasons for its wealth. Most of the
humbler folk on the widdershin side of the river, in
Morpork's mazy alleys, supplemented their meagre
incomes by filling some small role for one or other of
the competing gangs. So it was that by the time
Hugh and Twoflower entered the courtyard of the
Broken Drum the leaders of a number of them were
aware that someone had arrived in the city who
appeared to have much treasure. Some reports from
the more observant spies included details about a
book that told the stranger what to say, and a box
that walked by itself. These facts were immediately
discounted. No magician capable of such 
enchantments ever came within a mile of Morpork docks.
It still being that hour when most of the city was
just rising or about to go to bed there were few
people in the Drum to watch Twoflower descend the
stairs. When the Luggage appeared behind him and
started to lurch confidently down the steps the
customers at the rough wooden tables, as one man,
looked suspiciously at their drinks.
Broadman was browbeating the small troll who
swept the bar when the trio walked past him. "What
in hell's that?' he said.
"Just don't talk about it,' hissed Hugh. Twoflower

was already thumbing through his book.
'What's he doing?' said Broadman, arms akimbo.
"it tells him what to say. I know it sounds

ridiculous,' muttered Hugh.
"How can a book tell a man what to say?'
"i wish for an accommodation, a room, lodgings,

the lodging house, full board, are your rooms clean,
a room with a view, what is your rate for one night?'
said Twoflower in one breath.
Broadman looked at Hugh. The beggar shrugged.
"He's got plenty money,' he said.
"Tell him it's three copper pieces, then. And that
Thing will have to go in the stable.'
"?' said the stranger. Broadman held up three
thick red fingers and the man's face was suddenly a
sunny display of comprehension. He reached into
his pouch and laid three large gold pieces on Broadman's palm.
Broadman stared at them. They represented
about four times the worth of the Broken Drum,
Staff included. He looked at Hugh. There was no
help there. He looked at the stranger. He swallowed.
"Yes,' he said, in an unnaturally high voice. "And
then there's meals, o'course. Uh. You understand,
yes? Food. You eat. No?' He made the appropriate
motions.
"Fut?' said the little man.
'Yes,' said Broadman, beginning to sweat. "Have
a look in your little book, I should.'
The man opened the book and ran a finger down
one page. Broadman, who could read after a
fashion, peered over the top of the volume. What he
saw made no sense.
'Fooood,' said the stranger. "Yes. Cutlet, hash
chop, stew, ragout, fricassee, mince, collops, souffle,
dumpling, blancmange, sorbet, gruel, sausage, not
to have a sausage, beans, without a hear, kickshaws,
.jelly, jam. Giblets.' He beamed at Broadman.
"All that?' said the innkeeper weakly.
"it's just the way he talks,' said Hugh, "Don't ask

me why. He just does.'
All eyes in the room were watching the 
strangerexcept for a pair belonging to Rincewind the
wizard, who was sitting in the darkest corner
nursing a mug of very small beer.
He was watching the Luggage.
Watch Rincewind.
Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and
clad in a dark red robe on which a few mystic sigils
were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might
have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter
who had run away from his master out of defiance,
boredom, fear and a lingering taste for 
heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing
the bronze octagon that marked him as an alumnus
of Unseen University, the high school of magic
whose time-and-space transcendent campus is
never precisely Here or There. Graduates were
usually destined for mageship at least, but 
Rincewind - after an unfortunate event - had left
him knowing only one spell and made a living of sorts
around the town by capitalising on an innate gift
for languages. He avoided work as a rule, but had a
quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind
of a bright rodent. And he knew sapient pearwood
when he saw it. He was seeing it now, and didn't
quite believe it.
An archmage, by dint of great effort and much
expenditure of time, might eventually obtain a
small staff made from the timber of the sapient
peartree. It grew only on the sites of ancient magic
there were probably no more than two such staffs
in all the cities of the circle sea. A large chest of
it . . . Rincewind tried to work it out, and decided
that even if the box were crammed with star opals
and sticks of auricholatum the contents would not
be worth one-tenth the price of the container. A vein
started to throb in his forehead.
He stood up and made his way to the triO.
"May I be of assistance?' he ventured.
"Shove off, Rincewind,' snarled Broadman.
"i only thought it might be useful to address this

gentleman in his own tongue,' said the wizard
gently. 'He's doing all right on his own,' said the

innkeeper, but took a few steps backward.
Rincewind smiled politely at the stranger and
tried a few words of Chimeran. He prided himself on
his fluency in the tongue, but the stranger only
looked bemused.
"it won't work,' said Hugh knowledgeably. "it's

the book, you see. It tells him what to say. Magic.'
Rincewind switched to High Borogravian, to
Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even Black Oroogu, the
language with no nouns and only one adjective,
which is obscene. Each was met with polite
incomprehension. In desperation he tried heathen
Trob, and the little man's face split into a delighted
grin.
'At last! ' he said. "My good sir! This is remarkable! '
(Although in Trob the last word in fact became "a
thing which may happen but once in' the usable
lifetime of a canoe hollowed diligently by axe and
fire from the tallest diamondwood tree that grows
in the noted diamondwood forests on the lower
Slopes of Mount Awayawa, home of the firegods or
so it is said.').
"What was all that?' said Broadman suspiciously.
"What did the innkeeper say?' said the little man.
Rincewind swallowed.  Broadman,' he said. "Two
mugs of your best ale, please.'
"You can understand him?'
"Oh, sure.'
"Tell him tell him he's very welcome. Tell him
breakfast is - uh - one gold piece.' For a moment
Broadman's face looked as though some vast
internal struggle was going on, and then he added
with a burst of generosity. "i'll throw in yours, too.'
"Stranger,' said Rincewind levelly. "if you stay
here you will be knifed or poisoned by nightfall. But
don't stop smiling, or so will I.'
"Oh, come now,' said the stranger, looking around.
"This looks like a delightful place. A genuine
Morporkean tavern. I've heard so much about
them, you know. All these quaint old beams. And so
reasonable, too.'
Rincewind glanced around quickly, in case some
leakage of enchantment from the Magician's
Quarter across the river had momentarily 
transported them to some other place. No - this was still
the interior of the Drum, its walls stained with
smoke, its floor a compost of old rushes and
nameless beetles, its sour beer not so much 
purchased as merely hired for a while. He tried to fit the
image around the word "quaint', or rather the
nearest Trob equivalent, which was "that pleasant
oddity of design found in the little coral houses of
the sponge-eating pigmies on the Orohai peninsular'.
His mind reeled back from the effort. The visitor
went on, "My name is Twoflower,' and extended his
hand. Instinctively, the other three looked down to
see if there was a coin in it.
'Pleased to meet you,' said Rincewind. "i'm
Rincewind. Look, I wasn't joking. This is a tough place.'

"GoodE Exactly what I wanted!'
"Eh?'
"What is this stuff in the mugs?'
"This? Beer. Thanks, Broadman. Yes. Beer. You
know. Beer.'
"Ah. the so-typical drink. A small gold piece will

be sufficient payment, do you think? I do not want
to cause offense.'
It was already half out of his purse.
"Yarrt,' croaked Rincewind. "i mean, no, it won't
cause OffenSe.'
'Good. You say this is a tough place. Frequented,
you mean, by heroes and men of adventure?'
Rincewind considered this. "Yes?' he managed.
"Excellent. I would like to meet some.'
An explanation occurred to the wizard. 'Ah,' he
said. "You've come to hire mercenaries ('warriors
who fight for the tribe with most milknut-meal')?'
"Oh no. I just want to meet them. So that when I
get home I can say that I did it.'
Rincewind thought that a meeting with most of
the Drum's clientele would mean that Twoflower
never went home again, unless he lived downriver
and happened to float paSt.
"Where is your home?' he inquired. "broadman
had slipped away into some back room, he noticed.
Hugh was watching them suspiciously from a
nearby table.
"Have you heard of the city of Des Palargic?'
'Well, I didn't spend much time in Trob. I was just
passing through, you know-'
"Oh, it's not in Trob. I speak Trob because there
are many beTrobi sailors in our ports. Des Palargic
iS the major seaport of the Agatean Empire.'
'Never heard of it, I'm afraid.'
Twoflower raised his eyebrows. "No? It is quite
big. You sail turnwise from the Brown Islands for
about a week and there it is. Are you all right?'
He hurried around the table and patted the
wizard on the back. Rincewind choked on his beer
The Counterweight Continent!

Three streets away an old man dropped a coin into a

saucer of acid and swirled it gently. Broadman
waited impatiently, ill at ease in a room made
noisome by vats and bubbling beakers and lined
with shelves containing shadowy shapes 
suggestive of skulls and stuffed impossibilities.
"Well?' he demanded.
"one cannot hurry these things,' said the old

alchemist peevishly. "Assaying takes time. Ah.' He
prodded the saucer, where the coin now lay in a
SWirl of green colour. He made some calculations on
a scrap of parchment.
"Exceptionally interesting,' he said at last.
"is it genuine?'
The old man pursed his lips. "it depends on how
you define the term,' he said. "if you mean: is thiS
coin the same as, say, a fifty-dollar piece, then the
answer is no.'
"i knew' it,' screamed the innkeeper, and started

towards the door.
"i'm not sure that I'm making myself clear,' said
the alchemist. Broadman turned round angrily.
"What do you mean?'
"Well, you see, what with one thing and another
our coinage has been somewhat watered, over the
years. The gold content of the average coin is barely
four parts in twelve, the balance being made up of
silver, copper-'
"What of it?'
"i said this coin isn't like ours. It is pure gold.'
After Broadman had left, at a run, the alchemist
spent some time staring at the ceiling. Then he drew
out a very small piece of thin parchment, rummaged
for a pen amongst the debris on his workbench, and
wrote a very short, small, message. Then he went
over to his cages of white doves, black cockerels and
other laboratory animals. From one cage he
removed a glossy coated rat, rolled the parchment
into the phial attached to a hind leg, and let the
animal go.
It sniffed around the floor for a moment, then
disappeared down a hole in the far wall. ,

At about this time a hitherto unsucceSSful
fortune-teller living on the other side of the block
chanced to glance into her scrying bowl, gave a
small scream and, within the hour, had sold her
jewellery, various magical accoutrements, most of
her clothes and almost all her other possessions
that could not be conveniently carried on the fastest
horse she could buy. The fact that later on, when her
house collapsed in flames, she herself died in a
freak landslide in the Morpork Mountains, proves
that Death, too, has a sense of humour.

Also at about the same moment as the homing rat
disappeared into the maze of runs under the city,
scurrying along in faultless obedience to an ancient
instinct, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork picked up
the letters delivered that morning by albatross. He
looked pensively at the topmost one again, and
summoned his chief of spies.
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
ancmorpork. 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. Doubtless you have many projects
you wish to return to- some works of high magic, no
doubt . . .'
"no,' said Rincewind faintly. 'Not just at present.

A rhinu, you say? One a day. Every day?'
"i think perhaps in the circumstances I should

make it one and one-half rhinu per day. Plus any
out-of-pocket expenses, of course.'
The wizard rallied magnificently. "That will be
fine,' he Said. "Great.'
Twoflower reached into his pouch and took out a
large round gold object, glanced at it for a moment,
and slipped it back. Rincewind didn't get a chance
tO see it properly.
"i think,' said the tourist, "that I would like a little

sleep now. It was a long crossing. And then perhaps
you would care to call back at noon and we can take
a look at the city.'
"Sure.'
"Then please be good enough to ask the innkeeper

tO Show me to my room.'
Rincewind did so, and watched the nervous
Broadman, who had arrived at a gallop from some
back room, lead the way up the wooden steps
behind the bar. After a few seconds the luggage got
up and pattered across the floor after them.
Then the wizard looked down at the six big coins
in his hand. Twoflower had insisted on paying his
first four days' wages in advance.
Hugh nodded and smiled encouragingly. 
Rincewind snarled at him.
As a student wizard Rincewind had never
achieved high marks in precognition, but now
unused circuits in his brain were throbbing and the
future might as well have been engraved in bright
colours on his eyeballs. The space between his
shoulder blades began to itch. The sensible thing to
do, he knew, was to buy a horse. It would have to be
a faSt one, and expensive - offhand, RinCeWind
couldn't think of any horse-dealer he knew who was
rich enough to give' change out of almost a whole
ounce of gold.
And then, of course, the other five coins would
help him set up a useful practice at some safe
distance, say two hundred miles. That would be the
sensible thing.
But what would happen to Twoflower, all alone in
a city where even the cockroaches had an unerring
instinct for gold? A man would have to be a real heel
to leave him.

The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork smiled, but with
his mouth only.
"The Hub Gate, you say?' he murmured.
The guard captain saluted smartly. "Aye, lord. We
had to shoot the horse before he would stop.'
'Which, by a fairly direct route, brings you here,'
said the Patrician, looking down at Rincewind.
"And what have you got to say for yourself?'
It was rumoured that an entire wing of the
Patrician's palace was filled with clerks who spent
their days collating and updating all the 
information collected by their maSter's exquisitely organized
spy system. Rincewind didn't doubt it. He' glanced
towards the balcony that ran down one side of the
audience room. A sudden run, a nimble jump - a
sudden hail of crossbow quarrels. He shuddered.
The Patrician cradled his chins in a beringed
hand, and regarded the wizard with eyes as small
and hard as beads.
"Let me see,' he said. "Oathbreaking, the theft of a
horse, uttering false coinage - yes, I think it's the
Arena for you, Rincewind.'
This was too much.
"i didn't steal the horse! I bought it fairly!'
"But with false coinage. Technical theft, you see.'
"But those rhinu are solid gold!'
"Rhinu?' The Patrician rolled one of them around
in his thick fingers. "is that what they are called?
How interesting. But, as you point out, they are not
very similar to dollars . . .'
.Well, of course they're not-'
'Ah you admit it, then?'
Rincewind opened his mouth to speak, thought
better of it, and shut it again.
.Quite so. And on top of these there is, of course, the
moral obloquy attendant on the cowardly betrayal
of a visitor to this shore. For shame, Rincewind! ' The Patrician waved a hand vaguely. The guards

behind Rincewind backed away, and their captain
took a few paces to the right. Rincewind suddenly
felt very alone.
It is said that when a wizard is about to die Death
himself turns up to claim him ( instead of delegating
the task to a subordinate, such as Disease or
Famine, as is usually the case). Rincewind looked
around nervously for a tall figure in black( wizards,
even failed wizards, have in addition to rods and
cones in their eyeballs the tiny octagons that enable
them to see into the far octarine, the basic colour of
which all other colours are merely pale shadows
impinging on normal four-dimensional space. It is
said to be a sort of fluorescent greenish-yellow
purple).
Was that a flickering shadow in the corner?
'Of course,' said the Patrician, "i could be
merciful.' The shadow disappeared. Rincewind looked up

an expression of insane hope on his face.
'Yes?' he said.
The Patrician waved a hand again. Rincewind
saw the guards leave the chamber. Alone with the
"lord of the twin cities, he almost wished they
would come back.
"Come hither, Rincewind,' said the Patrician. He
indicated a bowl of savouries on a low onyx table by
the throne. "Would you care for a crystallised
jellyfish? No'. "Um ' said  RinceWind,
"Now I want you to listen very carefully to what I

am about to say,' said the Patrician amiably,
'otherwise you will die. In an interesting fashion.
Over a period. Please stop fidgetting like that.
"Since you are a wizard of sorts, you are of course

aware that we live upon a world shaped, as it were,
like a disc? And that there is said to exist, towards
the far rim, a continent which though small is equal
in weight to all the mighty landmasses in this 
hemicircle? And that this, according to ancient legend, is
because it is largely made of gold?'
Rincewind nodded. Who hadn't heard of the
Counterweight Continent? Some sailors even 
believed the childhood tales and sailed in search of it.
Of course, they returned either empty handed or not
at all. Probably eaten by giant turtles, in the
opinion of more serious mariners. Because, of
course, the Counterweight Continent was nothing
more than a solar myth.
"it does, of course, exist,' said the Patrician
"Although it is not made of gold, it is true that gold is

a very common metal there. Most of the mass is
made up by vast deposits of octiron deep within the
crust. Now it will be obvious to an incisive mind like
yours that the existence of the Counterweight
Continent poses a deadly threat to our people
here' he paused, looking at Rincewind's open
mouth. He sighed. He said, do you by some chance
fail to follow me?'
"Yarrg, said Rincewind. He swallowed, and
licked his lips. "i mean, no. I mean - well, gold . . .'
"i see,' said the Patrician sweetly. "You feel,

perhaps, that it would be a marvellous thing to go to
the Counterweight Continent and bring back a

shipload of gold?'
Rincewind had  a feeling that some sort of trap
was being set.
''Yes?' he ventured.
'And if' every man on the shores of the Circle Sea
had a mountain of gold of his own? Would that be a
good thing? What would happen? think carefully.'
Rincewind's brow furrowed. He thought. "We'd all
be rich?' The way the temperature fell at his remark told

him that it was not the correct one.
"i may as well tell you, Rincewind, that there is

some contact between the Lords of the Circle Sea
and the Emperor of the Agatean Empire, as it is
Styled,' the Patrician went on. it is only very slight
There is little common ground between us. We have
nothing they want, and they have nothing we can
afford. It is an old Empire, Rincewind. Old and
cunning and cruel and very, very rich. So we
exchange fraternal greetings by albatross mail. At
infrequent intervals.
"one such letter arrived this morning. A subject of

the Emperor appears to have taken it into his head
to visit our city. It appears he wishes to look at it.
Only a madman would possibly undergo all the
privationS of crossing the Turnwise Ocean in order
to merely look at anything. However.
he landed this morning. He might have met a
great hero, or the cunningest of thieves, or some
wise and great sage. He met you. He has employed
you as a guide. You will be a guide, Rincewind, to
thiS looker, this Twoflower. You will see that' he
returns home with a good report of our little
homeland. What do you say to that?'
"Er. Thank you, lord,' said Rincewind miserably.
"There iS another point, of course. It would be a
tragedy should anything untoward happen to our
little visitor. It would be dreadful if he were to die,
for example. Dreadful for the whole of our land,
because the Agatean Emperor looks after his own
and could certainly extinguish us at a nod. A mere
nod. And that would be dreadful for you, Rincewind,
because in the weeks that remained before the
Empire's huge mercenary fleet arrived certain of
my servants would occupy themselves about your
person in the hope that the avenging captains, on
their arrival, might find their anger tempered by
the sight of your still-living body. There are certain
spells that can prevent the life departing from a
body,be it never so abused, and- i see by your face
that understanding dawns?'
'Yarrg.'
"I beg your pardon?'
"Yes, lord. I'll, er, see to it, I mean, I'll endeavour to

see, I mean, well, I'll try to look after him and see he
comes to no harm.' And after that I'll get a job
juggling snowballs through Hell, he added bitterly
in the privacy of his own skull.
"Capital! I gather already that you and Twoflower

are on the best of terms. An excellent beginning
When he returns safely to his homeland you will not
find me ungrateful. I shall probably even dismiss
the charges against you. Thank you, Rincewind.
You may go.'
Rincewind decided not to ask for the return of his
five remaining rhinu. He backed away, cautiously.
"oh, and there is one other thing,' the Patrician

said, as the wizard groped for the door handles.
"Yes, lord?' he replied, with a sinking heart.
"i'm sure you won't dream of trying to escape from

your obligations by fleeing the city. I judge you to be
a born city person. But you may be sure that the
lords of the other cities will be appraised of these
conditions by nightfall.'
"i assure you the thought never even crossed my

mind, lord.'
"indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for

slander

Rincewind reached the Broken Drum at a dead run
and was just in time to collide with a man who came
out backwards, fast. The stranger's haste was in
part accounted for by the spear in his chest. He
bubbled noisily and dropped dead at the wizard's

feet. Rincewind peered around the doorframe and
jerked back as a heavy throwing axe whirred past
like a partridge. It was probably a lucky throw, a second cautious

glance told him. The dark interior of the Drum was
a broil of fighting men, quite a number of them - a
third and longer glance confirmed - in bits.
Rincewind swayed back as a wildly thrown stool
sailed past and smashed on the far side of the street.
Then he dived in.
He was wearing a dark robe, made darker by
constant wear and irregular washings. In the
raging gloom no-one appeared to notice a shadowy
shape that shuffled desperately from table to table.
At one point a fighter, staggering back, trod on
what felt like fingers. A number of what felt like
teeth bit his ankle. He yelped shrilly and dropped
hiS guard just sufficiently for a sword, swung by a
surpriSed opponent, to skewer him.
Rincewind reached the stairway, sucking his
bruised hand and running with a curious, bent-over
gait. A crossbow quarrel thunked into the banister
rail above him, and he gave a whimper.
He made the stairs in one breathless rush,
expecting at any moment another, more accurate
shot.
In the corridor above he stood upright, gasping
and saw the floor in front of him scattered with
bodies. A big black-bearded man, with a bloody
sword in one hand, was trying a door handle.
'Hey!' screamed Rincewind. The man looked
around and then, almost absent-mindedly, drew a
short throwing knife from his bandolier and hurled
it. Rincewind ducked. There was a brief scream
behind him as the crossbow man, sighting down his
weapon, dropped it and clutched at his throat.
The big man was already reaching for another
knife. Rincewind looked around wildly, and then
with wild improvisation drew himself up into a
wizardly pose.
His hand was flung back. "Asoniti! Kyoruchal
Beazleblor! '
The man hesitated, his eyes flicking nervously
from side to side as he waited for the magic. The
conclusion that there was not going to be any hit
him at the same time as Rincewind, whirring wildly
down the passage, kicked him sharply in the groin.
As he screamed and clutched at himself the
wizard dragged open the door, sprang inside,
slammed it behind him and threw his body against
it, panting.
It was quiet in here. There was Twoflower,
sleeping peacefully on the  bed. And there, at the
foot of the bed, was the Luggage.
Rincewind took a few steps forward, cupidity
moving him as easily as if he were on little wheels.
The chest was open. There were bags inside, and in
one of them he caught the gleam of gold. For a
moment greed overcame caution, and he reached
out gingerly . . . but what was the use? He'd never
live to enjoy it. Reluctantly he drew his hand back,
and was surprised to see a slight tremor in the
chest's open lid. Hadn't it shifted slightly, as
though rocked by the wind?
Rincewind looked at his fingers, and then at the
lid. It looked heavy, and was bound with brass
bands. It was quite still now.
What wind?
"Rincewind! '
Twoflower sprang off the bed. The wizard jumped
back, wrenching his features into a smile.
"My dear chap, right on time! We'll just have
lunch, and then I'm sure you've got a wonderful
programme lined up for this afternoon."

"That's great,'
Rincewind took a deep breath. "look,' he said
desperately, "let's eat somewhere else. There's been
a bit of a fight down below.
"a tavern brawl? Why didn't you wake me up?'
"Well, you see, I - what?'
"i thought I made myself clear this morning,

Rincewind. I want to see genuine Morporkian life 
the slave market, the Whore Pits, the Temple of
Small Gods, the Beggars' Guild . . . and a genuine
tavern brawl.' A faint note of suspicion entered
Twoflower's voice. "You do have them, don't you?
You know, people swinging on chandeliers, 
swordfightS over the table, the sort of thing Hrun the
Barbarian and the Weasel are always getting
involved in. You know - excitement.'
Rincewind sat down heavily on the bed.
"You want to see a fight?' he said.
"Yes. What's wrong with that?'
"for a Start, people get hurt.'
"oh, I wasn't suggesting we get involved. I just
want to see one, that's all. And some of your famous
heroes. You do have some, don't you? It's not all
dockSide talk?' And now, to the wizard's 
astonishment, Twoflower was almost pleading.
"Oh, yeah. We have them all right,' said Rincewind
hurriedly. He pictured them in his mind, and
recoiled from the thought.
All the heroes of the Circle Sea passed through
the gates of Ankh-Morpork sooner or later. Most of
them were from the barbaric tribes nearer the frozen
Hub, which had a sort of export trade in heroes
AlmoSt all of them had crude magic swords, whose
Unsuppressed harmonics on the astral plane played
hell with any delicate experiments in applied
sorcery for miles around, but Rincewind didn't
object to them on that score. He knew himself to be a
magical dropout, so it didn't bother him that the
mere appearance of a hero at the city gates was
enough to cause retorts to explode and demons to
materialise all through the Magical Quarter. No,
what he didn't like about heroes was that they were
usually suicidally gloomy when sober and 
homicidally insane when drunk. There were too many of
them, too. Some of the most notable questing
grounds near the city were a veritable hubbub in the
season. There was talk of organizing a rota.
He rubbed his nose. The only heroes he had much
time for were Bravd and the Weasel, who were out of
town at the moment, and Hrun the Barbarian, who
was practically an academic by Hub standards in
that he could think without moving his lips. Hrun
was said to be roving somewhere Turnwise.
"Look,' he said at last. "have you ever met a

barbarian?"
Twoflower shook his head.
"i was afraid of that,' said Rincewind. "Well.

they're'

There was a clatter of running feet in the street
outside and a fresh uproar from downstairs. It was
followed by a commotion on the stairs. The door was
flung open before Rincewind could collect himself
sufficiently to make a dash for the,window.
But instead of the greed-crazed madman he
expected, he found himself looking into the round
red face of a Sergeant of the Watch. He breathed
again. Of course. The Watch were always careful
not to intervene too soon in any brawl where the
odds were not heavily stacked in their favour. The
job carried a pension, and attracted a cautious,
thoughtful kind of man.
The Sergeant glowered at Rincewind, and then
peered at Twoflower with interest.
"Everything all right here, then?' he said.
"Oh, fine,' said Rincewind. "got held up, did you?'
The sergeant ignored him. "This the foreigner?"
he"" inquired.
"we" were just leaving,' said Rincewind quickly,
and switched to Trob. "Twoflower, I think we ought
to get lunch somewhere else. i know some places.'
He marched out into the corridor with as much
aplomb as he could muster. Twoflower followed,
and a few seconds later there was a strangling
sound from the sergeant as the luggage closed its
lid with a snap, stood up, stretched, and marched
after them.
Watchmen were dragging bodies out of the room
downstairs. There were no survivors. The Watch
had ensured this by giving them ample time to
escape via the back door, a neat compromise
between caution and justice that benefited all
parties.
"Who are all these men?' said Twoflower.

"oh, you know. Just men,' said Rincewind. And
before he could stop himself some part of his brain
that had nothing to do took control of his mouth
and added, "Heroes, in fact.'
"Really?'
When one foot is stuck in the Grey Miasma of
krull it is much easier to step right in and sink
rather than prolong the struggle. Rincewind let
himself go.
"Yes, that one over there is Frig Stronginthearm,
over there is Black Zenell-'
"is Hrun the Barbarian here?' said Twoflower,
looking around eagerly. Rincewind took a deep
breath.
"That's him behind us,' he said.
The enormity of this lie was so great that its
ripples did in fact spread out one of the lower astral
planes as far as the Magical Quarter across the
river, where it picked up tremendous velocity from
the huge standing wave of power that always
hovered there and bounced wildly across the Circle
Sea. A harmonic got as far as Hrun himself,
currently fighting a couple of gnolls on a crumbling
ledge high in the Caderack Mountains, and caused
him a moment's unexplained discomfort.
Twoflower, meanwhile, had thrown back the lid
of the Luggage and was hastily pulling out a heavy
black cube.
"This is fantastic, ' he said . "They're never going to

believe this at home. '
"What's he going on about?.' said the sergeant

doubtfully.
"He's pleased you rescued us,' said Rincewind. He
looked sidelong at the black box, half-expecting it to
explode or emit strange musical tones.
"Ah,' said the sergeant. He was staring at the box,

too

Twoflower smiled brightly at them.
'i'd like a record of the event,' he said. "Do you
think you could ask them all to stand over by the
window, please? This won't take a moment. And, er,
Rincewind? '
"Yes?'
Twoflower stood on tiptoe to whisper.
"i expect you know what this is, don't you?'
Rincewind stared down at the box. It had a round
glass eye protruding from the centre of one face,
and a lever at the back.
"Not wholly, ' he said.
"it's a device for making pictures quickly,' said

Twoflower. "Quite a new invention. I'm rather
proud of it but, look, I don't think these gentlemen
would - well, I mean they might be - sort of
apprehensive? Could you explain it to them? I'll
reimburse them for their time, of course.'
"He's got a box with a demon in it that draws

pictures,' said Rincewind shortly. "do what the
madman says and he will give you gold.'
The Watch smiled nervously.
'i'd like you in the picture, Rincewind. That's
fine.' Twoflower took out the golden disc that
Rincewind had noticed before, squinted at its
unseen face for a moment, muttered "Thirty seconds
should about do it,' and said brightly, "Smile please! '
"Smile,' rasped Rincewind. There was a whirr

from the box.
"Right.'

high above the disc the second albatross soared; so
high in fact that its tiny mad orange eyes could see
the whole of the world and the great, glittering,
girdling Circle Sea. There was a yellow message
capsule strapped to one leg. Far below it, unseen in
the clouds, the bird that had brought the earlier
message to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork flapped
gently back to its home.

Rincewind looked at the tiny square of glass in
astonishment. There he was, all right - a tinY
figure, in perfect colour, standing in front of a group
of Watchmen whose faces were each frozen in a
terrified rictus. A buzz of wordless terror went up
from the men around him as they craned over his
shoulder to look.
Grinning, Twoflower produced a handful of the
Smaller coins Rincewind now recognized as 
quarter-rhinu. He winked at the wizard.
"i had similar problems when I stopped over in
the Brown Islands,' he said. "They thought the 
iconograph steals a bit of their souls. Laughable, isn't it? ' "Yarg,' said Rincewind and then, because 
some
how that was hardly enough to keep up his side of
the conversation, added, "i don't think it looks "er\
like me, though.'
"it's easy to operate,' said Twoflower, ignoring
him. "Look, all you have to do is press this button.
The iconograph does the rest. Now, I'll just stand
over here next to Hrun, and you can take the
picture.'
The coins quietened the men's agitation in the
way that gold can, and Rincewind was amazed to
find, half a minute later, that he was holding a little
glass portrait of Twoflower wielding a huge notched
sword and smiling as though all his dreams had
come true.

They lunched at a small eating-house near the
Brass Bridge, with the luggage nestling under the
table. The food and wine, both far superior to
Rincewind's normal fare, did much to relax him.
Things weren't going to be too bad, he decided. A bit
of invention and some quick thinking, that was all
that was needed.
Twoflower seemed to be thinking too. Looking
reflectively into his wine cup he said, "Tavern fights
are pretty common around here, I expect?'
"Oh, fairly.'
'No doubt fixtures and fittings get damaged?'
"Fixt - oh, I see. You mean like benches and

whatnot. Yes, I suppose so.'
'That must be upsetting for the innkeepers.'
"i've never really thought about it. I suppose it

must be one of the risks of the job.'
Twoflower regarded him thoughtfully.
"i might be able to help there.' he said. "Risks are

my business. I say, this food is a bit greasy, isn't it?'
"You did say you wanted to try some typical
Morporkean food,' said Rincewind. "What was that
about risks?'
"Oh, I know all about risks. They're my business.'
"i thought that's what you said. I didn't believe it

the first time either.'
"oh, I don't take risks. About the most exciting
thing that happened to me was knocking some ink
over. I assess risks. Day after day. Do you know
what the odds are against a house catching fire in
the Red Triangle district of des Pelargic? Five
hundred and thirty-eight to one. I calculated that,'
he added with a trace of pride.

.What"what for?
Rincewind tried to suppress a burp
Scuse me.' He helped himself to some more wine

twoflower paused. "i can't say it in Trob,'
I don't think the beTrobi have a word for it.
in our language we call it-' he said a collection of
syllables.
ensowrants,' repeated Rincewind. "That's a funny word
. Wossit mean?'
well suppose you have a ship loaded with, say, gold bars.
it might run into storms or be taken by pirates. You
don't want that to happen, so you take
out an ensewer-ants-pally-sey . I work out the odds
of the cargo being lost, based on weather and
piracy records for the last twenty years, then I add on a
bit, then you pay me some money based
on those odds-" "and' the bit-' Rincewind said, waggling a
finger solemnly.
then, if the cargo is lost, I reimburse you.'
"reeburs?" "pay you
the value of your cargo,' said Twoflower
patiently.
oh I get it. It's like a bet, right?'
"a wager? In a way, I suppose,'
"and you make money at this inn-sewer-ants?
"it offers a return on investment, certainly.'
wrapped in the warm yellow glow of the wine,
rincewind tried to think of inn-sewer-ants in circle
sea terms.
"I don't think I unnerstan' this inn-sewer-ants,' he
said firmly, idly watching the world spin by,
"magic now.  Magic I unnerstan'.'
Twoflower grinned. 'Magic is one thing, and
reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits is another, he said.'
"whah?"
what!" "that funny word you used,' said Rincewind
impationtly.
"Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?
"Never heard of it.'

Twoflower tried to explain.
Rincewind tried to understand

In the long afternoon they toured the city Turn wise
of the river. Twoflower led the way, with the strange
picture-box slung on a strap round his neck,
Rincewind trailed behind, whimpering at intervals
and checking to see that his head was still there.
A few others followed, too. In a city where public
executions, duels, fights, magical feuds and strange
events regularly punctuated the daily round the
inhabitants had brought the profession of interested
bystander to a peak of perfection. They were, to a
man, highly skilled yawpers. In any case, 
Twoflower was delightedly taking picture after picture
of people engaged in what he described as typical
activities, and since a quarter-rhinu would 
subsequently change hands "for their trouble' a tail of
bemused and happy nouveux-riches was soon
following him in case this madman exploded in a
shower of gold.
At the Temple of the Seven-Handed Sek a hasty
convocation of priests and ritual heart-transplant
artisans agreed that the hundred-span high statue
of Sek was altogether too holy to be made into a
magic picture, but a payment of two rhinu left them
astoundedly agreeing that perhaps He wasn't as
holy as all that.
A prolonged session at the Whore Pits produced a
number of colourful and instructive pictures, a
number of which Rincewind concealed about his
person for detailed perusal in private. As the fumes
cleared from his brain he began to speculate
Seriously as to how the iconograph worked.
Even a failed wizard knew that some substances
were sensitive to light. Perhaps the glass plates
were treated by some arcane process that froze the
light, that passed through them: or Something like
that, anyway. Rincewind often suspected that there
was Something, somewhere, that was better than
magic. He was usually disappointed.
However, he soon took every opportunity to
operate the box. Twoflower was only too pleased to
allow this, since that enabled the little man to
appear in his own pictures. It was at this point that
Rincewind noticed something strange. Possession
of the box conferred a kind of power on the wielder 
which was that anyone, confronted with the
hypnotic glass eye, would submissively obey the
most 'peremptory orders about stance and 
expression. It was while he was thus engaged in the Plaza of

Broken Moons that disaster struck.
Twoflower had posed alongside a bewildered
charm-seller, his crowd of new-found admirers
watching him with interest in case he did 
something humorously lunatic.
Rincewind got down on one knee, the better to
arrange the picture, and pressed the enchanted
lever.
The box said, "It's no good. I've run out of pink.'
A hitherto unnoticed door opened in front of his
eyeS. A small, green and hideously warty humanoid
figure leaned out, pointed at a colour-encrusted
palette in one clawed hand, and screamed at him.
'No pink, See?' screeched the homunculus."No
good you going on pressing the lever when there's
no pink, is there? If you wanted pink you shouldn't
of took all those pictures of young ladies, should
you? It's monochrome from now on, friend. Alright? '
"Alright. Yeah, Sure,' said Rincewind. In one dim

corner of the little box he thought he could see an
easle, and a tiny unmade bed. He hoped he couldn't.
"So long as that's understood,' said the imp, and
shut the door. Rincewind thought he could hear the
muffled sound of grumbling and the scrape of a
stool being dragged across the floor.
"Twoflower-' he began, and looked up.
Twoflower had vanished. As Rincewind stared at
the crowd, with sensations of prickly horror 
traveling up his spine, there came a gentle prod in the
small of his back.
"turn without haste,' said a voice like black silk.
'Or kiss your kidneys goodbye.'
The crowd watched with interest. It was turning
out to be quite a good day.
Rincewind turned slowly, feeling the point of the
sword scrape along his ribs. At the other end of the
blade he recognized Siren Withel - thief, cruel
swordsman, disgruntled contender for the title of
worst man in the world.
" Hi , ' he said weakly . A few yards away he noticed

a couple of unsympathetic men raising the lid of the
Luggage and pointing excitedly at the bags of gold.
Withel smiled. It made an unnerving effect on his
scar-crossed face.
'I know you,' he said. "a gutter wizard. What is
that thing?'
Rincewind became aware that the lid of the 
Luggage was trembling slightly, although there was no
wind. And he was still holding the picture-box.
"This? It makes pictures, ' he said brightly. "Hey.
just hold that smile, will you?' He backed away
quickly and pointed the box.
For a moment Withel hesitated. "What? he said.
'That's fine, hold it just like that . . .' said
Rincewind.
The thief paused, then growled and swung his
sword back.
There was a snap, and a duet of horrible screams
Rincewind did not glance around for fear of the
terrible things he might see, and by the time Withel
looked for him again he was on the other side of the plaza
and still accelerating.

The albatross descended in wide, slow sweeps that
ended in an undignified flurry of feathers and a
thump as it landed heavily on its platform in the
Patrician's bird garden.
The custodian of the birds, dozing in the sun and
hardly expecting a long-distance message so soon
after this morning's arrival, jerked to his feet and
looked up. A few moments later he was scuttling through the

palace's corridors holding the message capsule and
-sucking at the nasty beak wound on the back of his hand owing to carelessness brought on by surpriSe 
Rincewind pounded down an alley, paying no heed
to the screams of rage coming from the picture box
and cleared a high wall with his frayed robe 
flapping around him like the feathers of a dishevelled
jackdaw. He landed in the forecourt of a carpet
shop, scattering the merchandise and customers
dived through its rear exit trailing apologies
skidded down another alley and stopped, teetering
dangerously, just as he was about to plunge
unthinkingly into the Ankh.
There are said to be some mystic rivers one drop
of which can steal a man's life away. After its turbid
paSsage through the twin cities the Ankh could
have been one of them.
In the distance the cries of rage took on a shrill
note of terror. Rincewind looked around desperately
for a boat, or a handhold up the sheer walls on
either Side of him.
He was trapped.
Unbidden, the Spell welled up in his mind. It was
perhaps untrue to say that he had learned it; it had
learned him. The episode had led to his expulsion
from Unseen University, because, for a bet, he had
dared to open the pages of the last remaining copy
of the creators own grimOire, The  Octavo, while the
University librarian was otherwise engaged.. The
spell had leapt out of the page and instantly
burrowed deeply into his mind, from whence even
the combined talents of the Faculty of Medicine had
been unable to coax it. Precisely which one it was
they were also unable to ascertain, except that it
was one of the eight basic spells that were
intricately interwoven with the very fabric of time
and space itself.
Since then it had been showing a worrying
tendency, when Rincewind was feeling rundown or
especially threatened, to try to get itself said.
He clenched his teeth together but the first
syllable forced itself around the corner of his
mouth. His left hand raised involuntarily and, as
the magical force whirled him round, began to give
off octarine sparks . . .
The Luggage hurtled around the corner, its
several hundred knees moving like pistons.
Rincewind gaped. The spell died, unsaid.
The box didn't appear to be hampered in any way
by the ornamental rug draped roguishly over it, nor
by the thief hanging by one arm from the lid. It was
in a very real sense, a dead weight. Further along
the lid were the remains of two fingers, owner
unknown.
The Luggage halted a few feet from the wizard
and, after a moment, retracted its legs. It had no
eyes that Rincewind could see, but he was never 
theless sure that it was staring at him. Expectantly.
"Shoo,' he said weakly. It didn't budge, but the lid

creaked open, releasing the dead thief.
Rincewind remembered about the gold. 
Presumably the box had to have a master. In the absence of
Twoflower, had it adopted him?
The tide was turning and he could see debris
drifting downstream in the yellow afternoon light
towards the river gate, a mere hundred yards
downstream. It was the work of a moment to let the
dead thief join them. Even if it was found later it
would hardly cause comment. And the sharks in the
Ankh were used to solid, regular meals.
Rincewind watched the body drift away, and
considered his next move. The Luggage would
probably float. All he had to do was wait until dusk,
and then go out with the tide. There were plenty of
wild places downstream where he could wade
ashore, and then - well, if the Patrician really had
sent out word about him then a change of clothing
and a shave should take care of that. In any case,
there were other lands and he had a facility for
languages. Let him but get to Chimera or Gonim or
Ecalpon and half a dozen armies couldn't bring him
back. And then - wealth, comfort, security . . .
There was, of course, the problem of Twoflower.
Rincewind allowed himself a moment's sadness.
'it could be worse,' he said by way of farewell. "it
could be me.'
It was when he tried to move that he found hiS
robe was caught on some obstruction.
By craning his neck he found that the edge of it
was being gripped firmly by the Luggage's lid.

"Ah, Gorphal,' said the Patrician pleasantly.  Come
in. Sit down. Can I press you to a candied starfish?'
"i am yours to command, master,' said the old
man calmly. "save, perhaps, in the matter of
preserved echinoderms . '
The Patrician shrugged, and indicated the scroll
on the table.
"Read that,' he said.
Gorphal picked up the parchment and raised one
eyebrow slightly when he saw the familiar 
ideograms of the Golden Empire. He read in silence for
perhaps a minute, and then turned the scroll over to
examine minutely the seal on the obverse.
"you are faimed as a student of empire affairs,"
said the Patrician. "Can you explain this?"
'Knowledge in the matter of the Empire lies less
in noting particular events than in studying a
certain cast of mind,' said the old diplomat. "The
message is curious, yes, but not surprising.'
"This morning the Emperor instructed,' the
Patrician allowed himself the luxury of a scowl,
"instructed me, Gorphal, to protect this Two Flower
person. Now it seems I must have him killed. You
don't find that surprising?'
"No. The Emperor is no more than a boy. He is 
idealiStic. Keen. A god to his people. Whereas this
afternoon's letter is, unless I am very much
mistaken, from Nine Turning mirrors, the Grand
Vizier. He has grown old in the service of several
Emperors. He regards them as a necessary but
tiresome ingredient in the successful running of the
Empire. He does not like things out of place. The
Empire was not built by allowing things to get out
of place. That is his vieW.'
'I begin to see' said the Patrician.
"quite so.' Gorphal smiled into his beard. "This

tourist is a thing that is out of place. After acceding
to his master's wishes Nine Turning Mirrors would,
I am quite sure, make his own arrangements with a
view to ensuring that one wanderer would not be
allowed to return home bringing, perhaps, the
disease of dissatisfaction. The Empire likes people
to stay where it puts them. So much more convenient,
then, if this Two Flower disappears for good in the
barbarian lands. meaning here, master.'
"And your advice?' said the Patrician.
Gorphal shrugged.
"Merely that you should do nothing. Matters will
undoubtedly resolve themselves. However,' he 
scratched an ear thoughtfully, 'perhaps the Assassins'
Guild . . . ?'
"Ah yes,' said the Patrician. "The Assassins
guild. Who is their president at the moment?"
"Zlorf flannelfoot, master."
"have a word with him, will you?'
'Quite so, master.'
The Patrician nodded. It was all rather a relief.
He agreed with Nine Turning Mirrors - life was
difficult enough; People ought to stay where they
were put.

Brilliant constellations shone down on the 
discworld. One by one the traders shuttered their shops.
One by one the gonophs, thieves, finewirers,
whores, illusionists, backsliders and second-storey
men awoke and breakfasted. Wizards went about
their polydimensional affairs. Tonight saw the
conjunction of two powerful planets, and already
the air over the Magical Quarter was hazy with
early spells.
"look,' Said Rincewind, "this isn't getting us

anywhere.' He inched sideways. The Luggage
followed faithfully, lid half open and menacing.
Rincewind briefly considered making a desperate
leap to safety. The lid smacked in anticipation.
In any case, he told himself with sinking heart,
the damn thing would only follow him again. It had
that dogged look about it. Even if he managed to get
to a horse, he had a nasty suspicion that it would
follow him at its own pace. Endlessly. Swimming
rivers and oceans. Gaining slowly every night,
while he had to stop to sleep. And then one day, in
some exotic city and years hence, he'd hear the
sound of hundreds of tiny feet accelerating down
the road behind him . . .
'You've got the wrong man!' he moaned. "it's not
my fault! I didn't kidnap him!'
The box moved forward slightly. Now there was
just a narrow strip of greasy jetty between 
rincewind's heels and the river. A flash of precognition
told him that the box would be able to swim faster
than he could. he tried not to imagine what it would
be like to drown in the Ankh.
'it won't stop until you give in, you know,' said a
small voice conversationally.
Rincewind looked down at the iconograph, still
hanging around his neck. Its trapdoor was open
and the homunculus was leaning against the trap,
smoking a pipe and watching the proceedings with
amusement.
"i'll take you in with me, at least,' said RinCeWind

through gritted teeth.
The imp took the pipe out of his mouth. "What did
you say?' he said.
"i said i'll take you in with me, dammit!'
"Suit yourself.' The imp tapped the side of the box

meaningfully. "We'll see who sinks first.'
The luggage yawned, and moved forward a
fraction of an inch.
"oh all right,' said Rincewind irritably. "But

you'll have to give me time to think.'
The luggage backed off slowly. Rincewind edged
his way back onto reasonably safe land and sat
down with his back against a wall. Across the river
the lights of Ankh city glowed.
"You're a wizard,' said the picture imp. "You'll

think of some way to find him.'
"Not much of a wizard, I'm afraid.'
"You can just jump down on everyone and turn

them into worms,' the imp added encouragingly,
ignoring his last remark.
"No. Turning To Animals is an Eighth Level

spell. I never even completed my training. I only
know one spell.'
"Well, that'll do.'
"i doubt it,' said Rincewind hopelessly
"What does it do, then?'
"Can't tell you. Don't really want to talk about it.

But frankly,' he sighed , "no spells are much good . It
takes three months to commit even a simple one to
memory, and then once you've used it, pow it's
gone. that's what's so stupid about the whole magic
thing, You know. You spend twenty Years learning
the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your
bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver
fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires
that you can't remember what happens next.'
'I never thought of it like that,' said the imp.
'Hey, look - this is all wrong. When Twoflower
said they'd got better kind of magic in the empire I
thought- I thought . . .'
The imp looked at him expectantly. Rincewind
cursed to himself.
"Well, if you must know, I thought he didn't mean
magic. Not as such.'
"What else is there, then?'
Rincewind began to feel really wretched. "I don't
know,' he said. "A better way of doing things, I
suppose. Something with a bit of sense in it.
Harnessing - harnessing the lightning, or 
something.
The imp gave him a kind but pitying look.
"Lightning is the spears hurled by the thunder
giants when they fight,' it said gently.  "Established
meteorological fact. You can't harness it.'
"I know,' said Rincewind miserably. That's the
flaw in the argument, of course.'
The imp nodded. and disappeared into the depths
of the iconograph .' A few moments later Rincewind
smelled bacon frying. He waited until his stomach
couldn't Stand the strain any more, and rapped on
the box. The imp reappeared.
"I've been thinking about what you said," it said even
before Rincewind could open his mouth. "And even
if you could get a harness on it, how could you get it
to pull a cart?'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Lightning. It just goes up and down.'You'd want
it to go along, not up and down. Anyway, it'd
probably burn through the harnesS.'
"I don't care about the lightning! How can I think
on an empty stomach?'
"Eat something, then. That's logic.'
' How? Every time I move that damn box flexes itS
hinges at mei'
The luggage, on cue, gaped widely.
"See?'
"it's not trying to bite you,' said the imp. "There's
food in there. You're no use to it starved.'
Rincewind peered into the dark recesses of the
Luggage. There were indeed, among the chaos of
boxes and bags of gold, several bottles and 
packages in oiled paper. He gave a cynical laugh,
mooched around the abandoned jetty until he found
a piece of wood about the right length, wedged it as
politely as poSSible in the gap between the lid and
the box, and pulled out one of the flat packages.
It held biscuits that turned out to be as hard as
diamond-wood.
'bloody hell he muttered, nursing his teeth.
"Captain Eightpanther's Travellers' Digestives
them,' said the imp from the doorway to his box
"Saved many a life at sea, they have.'

'Oh, sure. Do you use them as a raft, or just throw
them to the sharks and sort of watch them sink?
What's in the bottles? Poison?'
"Water.'
"But there's water everywhere! Why'd he want to

bring water?'
"Trust.'
"Trust?'

'Yes. That's what he didn't, the water here. See?
Rincewind opened a bottle. The liquid inside might
have been water. It had a flat, empty flavour, with
no trace of life. 'Neither taste nor smell.' he grumbled
The luggage gave a little creak, attracting his
attention. With a lazy air of calculated menace it
shut its lid slowly, grinding Rincewind's impromptu
wedge like a dry loaf.
"All right, all right,' he said. "i'm thinking.'

Ymor's headquarters were in the leaning Tower at
the junction of Rime Street and Frost Alley. At
midnight the solitary guard leaning in the shadows
looked up at the conjoining planets and wondered
idlly what change in his fortunes they might herald.
There was the faintest of sounds, as of a gnat
yawning. The guard glanced down the deserted street, and

now caught the glimmer of moonlight on something
lying in the mud a few yards away. He picked it up.
The lunar light gleamed on gold, and his intake of
breath was almost loud enough to echo down the
alleyway. There was a slight sound again, and another coin

rolled into the gutter on the other side of the street.
By the time he had picked it up there was another
one, a little way off and still spinning. Gold was, he
remembered, said to be formed from the crystallized
light of stars. Until now he had never believed it to
be true, that something as heavy as gold could fall
naturally from the sky.
As he drew level with the opposite alley mouth
some more fell. It was still in its bag, there was an
awful lot of it, and Rincewind brought it down
heavily onto his head.
When the guard came to he found himself looking
up into the wild-eyed face of a wizard, who was
menacing his throat with a sword. In the' darkness
tOO, Something was gripping his leg.
It was the disconcerting sort of grip that suggested
that the gripper could grip a whole lot harder, if he
wanted to.
"Where is he, the rich foreigner?'' hissed the
wizard. "Quickly!'
"What's holding my leg?'  said the man, with a
note of terror in his voice. 'He tried to wriggle free.
The pressure increased
"You wouldn't want to know,' said Rincewind
"Pay attention, please. Where's the foreigner?'
"Not here. They've got him at Broadman's place.
"everyone's looking for him! You're Rincewind
aren't you? The box - the box that bites people 
ononono . : . pleasssse . . .'
Rincewind had gone. The guard felt the unseen
leg-gripper release his - or, as he was beginning to
fear,it's- hold. Then, as he tried to pull himself to his
feet, something big and heavy and square cannoned
into him out of the dark and plunged off after the
wizard. Something with hundreds of tiny feet.

With only his home-made phrase book to help him
Twoflower was trying to explain the mysteries of
in-sour-ants to Broadman . The fat innkeeper was
listening intently, his little black eyes glittering.
From the other end of the table Ymor watched
with mild amusement, occasionally feeding one oF
his ravens with scraps from his plate. Beside him
Withel paced up and down.
"You fret too much,' said Ymor, without taking his

eyes from the two men opposite him. "i can feel it
Siren. Who would dare attack us' here? And the
gutter wizard will come. He's too much of a coward
not to. And he'll try to bargain. And we shall have
him. And the gold. And the chest.'
Withel's one eye glared, and he made a fist
into the palm of a black-gloved hand.
"Who would have thought there was so much

sapient pearwood in the whole of the disc?' he said.
'How could we have known?'
"You fret too much, Siren. I'm sure you can do
better this time,' said Ymor pleasantly.
The lieutenant snorted in disgust, and strode off
around the room to bully his men. Ymor carried on
watching the tourist.
It was strange, but the little man didn't seem to
realise the seriousness of his position. Ymer had on
several occasions seen him look around the room
With an expression of deep satisfaction.
he had also been talking for ages to broadman and Ymer had
seen a piece of paper change hands and Broadman
had given the foreigner some coins. It was strange.
When Broadman got up and waddled past  Ymer's chair the thiefmasters
arm shot out like a steel spring and grabbed the
fat man by his apron.
"What was that all about friend?" asked ymer
quietly. oh-nothing, Ymor. Just private business, like.'
"There are no secrets between friends, Broadman.
"Yan. Well, I'm not sure about it myself, really. It's
a sort of bet, see?' said the innkeeper nervously
"inn-sewer-ans, it's called. It's like a bet that the
Broken Drum won't get burned down.'
Ymor held the man's gaze until Broadman
twitched in fear and embarrassment. Then the
thiefmaster laughed.
'This worm-eaten old tinder pile?' he said. "The
man must be mad! '
"Yes, but mad with money. He says now he's got
the - can't remember the word, begins with a P, it's
what you might call the stake money- the people he
workS for in the Agatean Empire will pay up. If the
Broken Drum burns down. Not that I hope it does.
Burn down. The Broken Drum, I mean. I mean, it's
like a home to me, is the Drum . . .'
"Not entirely stupid, are you?' said Ymor, and
pushed the innkeeper away.
The door slammed back on its hinges and
thudded into the wall.
"Hey, that's my door. ' screamed Broadman . Then
he realised who was standing at the top of the steps,
and ducked behind the table a mere shaving of time
before a short black dart sped across the room and
thunked into the woodwork.
Ymor moved his hand carefully, and poured out another flagon of beer.
"Won't you join me, Zlorf?' he said levelly. "and
put that sword away , Siren. Zlorf Flannelfoot is our
friend '

The president of the Assassins' Guild spun his
short blowgun dexterously and slotted it into its
holster in one smooth movement.
'Siren!' said Ymor.
The black-clad thief hissed, and sheathed his
sword. But he kept his hand on the hilt, and his eyes
on the assassin.
That wasn't easy. Promotion in the Assassins'
Guild was by competitive examination, the Practical
being the most important - indeed, the only - part
Thus Zlorf's broad, honest face was a welter of scar
tissue, the result of many a close encounter. It
probably hadn't been all that good-looking in any
case- it was said that Zlorf had chosen a profession
in which dark hoods, cloaks and nocturnal prowlings
figured largely because there was a day-fearing
trollish streak in his parentage. People who said
this in earshot of Zlorf tended to carry their ears
home in their hats.
He strolled down the stairs, followed by a number
of assassins. When he was directly in front of Ymor
he said: "i've come for the tourist.'
is it any of Your business, Zlorf?'
"Yes. Gringo, Urmond - take him.'

Two of the assassins stepped forward. Then Siren
was in front of them, his sword appearing to
materialise an inch from their throats without
having to pass through the intervening aiR.
"Possibly I could only kill one of you,' he

murmured, "but I suggest you ask yourselves 
which one?'
"Look up, Zlorf,' said Ymor.

A row of yellow, baleful eyes looked down from
the darkness among the rafters.
"one step more and you'll leave here with fewer
eyes than you came with
So sit downn and have a drink
Said the thiefmaster.
, Zlorf, and let's talk about thiS Sensibly. I thought
we had an agreement.

You don't rob- I don't kill. Not for payment, that is,'
he added after a pause.
Zlorf took the proffered beer.
.So?' he said. "i'll kill him. Then you rob him. Is he

that funny looking one over there?'
"Yes.'
Zlorf Stared at Twoflower, who grinned at him.
He shrugged. He seldom wasted time wondering
why people wanted other people dead. It was just a
living. "Who is your client, may I ask?' said Ymor.

Zlorf held up a hand. "Please!' he protested.
"Professional etiquette.'
"of course. By the way-'
"Yes?'
'I believe I have a couple of guards outside'
"Had.'
"And some others in the doorway across the
street- "
"Formerly.'
"and two bowmen on the roof.'

A flicker of doubt passed across Zlorfs face, like
the last shaft of sunlight over a badly ploughed field.
The door flew open, badly damaging the assassin
who was standing beside it.
'Stop doing that!' shrieked Broadman, from
under his table.
Zlorf and Ymor stared up at the figure on the
threShold. It was short, fat and richly dressed. Very
richly dreSSed. There were a number of tall, big
shapes looming behind it. Very big, threatening
shapes.
'Who's that?' said Zlorf.
"I know him,' said Ymor. "His name's Rerpf. He
runS the Groaning Platter tavern down by Brass
Bridge. Siren - remove him.'
Rerpf held up a beringed hand. Siren Withel
hesitated halfway to the door as several very large
trolls ducked under the doorway and stood on either
side of the fat man, blinking in the light. Muscles
the size of melons bulged in forearms like flour
sacks. Each troll held a double-headed axe. Between
thumb and forefinger.
Broadman erupted from cover, his face Suffused
with rage.
"out!' he screamed. "Get those trolls out of here!' No-one moved. The room was suddenly quiet.

Broadman looked around quickly. It began to dawn
on him just what he had said, and to whom. A
whimper escaped from hiS lips, glad to be free.
He reached the doorway to his cellars just as one
of the trolls, with a lazy flick of one ham-sized hand,
sent his axe whirling across the room. The slam of
the door and its subsequent splitting as the axe hit
it merged into one sound.
"Bloody hell!' exclaimed Zlorf Flannelfoot.
"What do you want?' said Ymor.
"I am here on behalf of the Guild of Merchants and
Traders,' said Rerpf evenly. "to protect our interests,
you might say. Meaning the little man.'
Ymor wrinkled his brows.
"i'm sorry,' he said. "i thought I heard you say the
Guild of Merchants?'
"And traders,' agreed Rerpf. Behind him now, in

addition to more trolls, were several humans that
Ymor vaguely recognized. He had seen them,
maybe, behind counters and bars. Shadowy figures,
usually - easily ignored, easily forgotten. At the
back of his mind a bad feeling began to grow. He
thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox
confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep, moreover,
that could afford to employ wolves.
'How long has this - Guild - been in existence,
may I ask?' he said.
"Since this afternoon,' said Rerpf. "I'm 
viceguildmaster in charge of tourism, you know.'
"What is this touriSm of which you Speak?'
.Uh - we are not quite sure . . .' said Rerpf. An old
beaded man poked his head over the guildmaster's
shoulder and cackled, 'Speaking on behalf of the
winesellers of Morpork, Tourism means Business
See?' "Well?' said Ymor coldly.

"Well,' said Rerpf, "we're protecting our interests,
like I said.'
"Thieves OUT, Thieves OUT! ' cackled his elderly
companion. Several others took up the chant. Zlorf
grinned. "and assassins,' chanted the old man.
Zlorf growled.
"Stands to reason,' said Rerpf. 'People robbing

and murdering all over the place, what sort of 
impression are visitors going to take away? You come all
the way to see our fine city with its many points of
historical and civic interest, also many quaint
customS, and you wake up dead in some back alley
or as it might be floating down the Ankh, how are
you going to tell all your friends what a great time
you're having? Let's face it, you've got to move with
the timeS.'
Zlorf and Ymor met each other's gaze.
"We have, have we?' said Ymor.
"Then let us move,'brother,' agreed Zlorf. In one
movement he brought his blowgun to his mouth
and sent a dart hissing towards the nearest troll. It
spun around, hurling its axe, which whirred over
the assassin's head and buried itself in a luckless
thief behind him.
Rerpf ducked, allowing a troll behind him to raise
itS huge iron crossbow and fire a spear-length
quarrel into the nearest assassin. That was the
start . . .

It has been remarked before that those who are
sensitive to radiations in the far octarine - the
eighth colour, the pigment of the imagination- can
see things that others cannot.
Thus it was that Rincewind, hurrying through
the crowded, flare-lit evening bazaars of Morpork
With the luggage trundling behind him, jostled a
tall dark figure, turned to deliver a few suitable
curses, and beheld Death.
It had to be Death. No-one else went around with
empty eye sockets and, of course, the scythe over
one shoulder was another clue. As Rincewind stared
in horror a courting couple, laughing at some
private joke, walked straight through the 
apparition without appearing to notice it.
Death, insofar as it was possible in a face with no
movable features, looked surprised.
RINCEWIND? Death said, in tones as deep and
heavy as the slamming of leaden doors, far 
underground.
"Um,' said Rincewind, trying to back away from

that eyeless stare.
BUT WHY ARE YOU HERE? ( Boom, boom went crypt
lids, in the worm-haunted fastnesses under old

mountains . . .)
"Um, why not?' said Rincewind. "Anyway, I'm

sure you've got lots to do, so if you'll just-'
I WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU JOSTLED ME,, RINCe
WIND. FOR I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THEE THIS
VERY NIGHT.
"oh no, not-'

OF COURSE, WHAT'S SO BLOODY VEXING ABOUT THE
WHOlE BUSINESS IS THAT I WAS EXPECTING TO MEET
THEE IN PSUDOPOLIS.
"But that's five hundred miles away!'
YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME, THE WHOLE SYSTeM'S
GOT SCREWED UP AGAIN. I CAN SEE THAT. LOOK
THERE'S NO CHANCE OF YOU-?
Rincewind backed away, hands spread 
protectively in front of him. The dried fish salesman on a
nearby stall watched this madman with interest.
"I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE.
IT WON'T HURT A BIT."
'No!' Rincewind turned and ran. Death watched
him go and shrugged bitterly.
SOD YOU, THEN, Death said. He turned, and
noticed the fish salesman. With a snarl Death
reached out a bony finger and stopped the man's
heart, but he didn't take much pride in it.
Then death remembered what was due to happen
later that night. It would not be true to say that
death smiled, because in any case His features were
perforce frozen in a calcareous grin. But He
hummed a little tune, cheery as a plague pit, and 
pausing only to extract the life from a passing
mayfly, and one-ninth of the lives from a cat
cowering under the fish stall (all cats can see into
the octarine) - Death turned on His heel and set off
towards the Broken Drum.

ShortStreet,Morpork, is in fact one of the longest in
the city. Filigree Street crosses its turnwise end in
the manner of the crosspiece of a T, and the Broken
Drum is so placed that it looks down the full length
of the street.
At the furthermost end of Short Street a dark
oblong rose on hundreds of tiny legs, and started to
run. At first it moved at no more than a lumbering
trot, but by the time it was halfway up the street it
was moving arrow-fast . . .
A darker shadow inched its way along one of the
walls of the Drum, a few yards from the two trolls
who were guarding the door. Rincewind was
sweating. If they heard the faint clinking of the
specially-prepared bags at his belt . . .
One of the trolls tapped his colleague on the
Shoulder, producing a noise like two pebbles being
knocked together. He pointed down the starlit
street . . .
Rincewind darted from his hiding place, turned,
and hurled his burden through the Drum's nearest
window

Withel saw it arrive. The bag arced across the room,
turning slowly in the air, and burst on the edge of a
table. A moment later gold coins were rolling across
the floor, spinning, glittering.
The room was suddenly silent, save for the tiny
noises of gold and the whimpers of the wounded
With a curse Withel despatched the assassin he had
been fighting. "it's a trick!' he screamed. "No-one
mov Three score men and a dozen trolls froze in
mid-grope.
Then, for the third time, the door burst open. Two
trolls hurried through it, slammed it behind them
dropped the heavy bar across it and fled down the
stairs.
Outside there was a sudden crescendo of running
feet. And, for the last time, the door opened. In fact
it exploded, the great wooden bar being hurled far
across the room and the frame itself giving way.
Door and frame landed on a table, which flew into
splinters. It was then that the frozen fighters
noticed that there was something else in the pile of
wood. It was a box, shaking itself madly to free
itself of the smashed timber around it.
Rincewind appeared in the ruined doorway
hurling another of his gold grenades. It Smashed
into a wall, showering coins.

Down in the cellar Broadman looked up, muttered to
himself, and carried on with his work. His entire
spindlewinter's supply of candles had already been
strewn on the floor, mixed with his store of kindling
wood. Now he was attacking a barrel of lamp oil.
'innsewer-ants' he muttered. Oil gushed out and
swirled around his feet.

Withel stormed across the floor, his face a mask of
rage. Rincewind took careful aim and caught the
thief full in the chest with a bag of gold.
But now Ymor was shouting, and pointing an
accusing finger. A raven swooped down from its
perch in the rafters and dived at the wizard, talons
open and gleaming.
It didn't make it. At about the halfway point the
Luggage leapt from its bed of splinters, gaped
briefly in mid-air, and snapped shut.
It landed lightly. Rincewind saw its lid open
again, slightly. Just far enough for a tongue, large
as a palm leaf, red as mahogany, to lick up a few
errant feathers.
At the same moment the giant candlewheel fell
from the ceiling, plunging the room into gloom.
Rincewind, coiling himself like a spring, gave a
Standing jump and grasped a beam, swinging
himself up into the relative safety of the roof with a
strength that amazed him.
"Exciting, isn't it?' said a voice by his ear.
Down below, thieves, assassins, trolls and 
merchants all realised at about the same moment that
they were in a room made treacherous of foothold
by gold coins and containing something, among
the Suddenly menacing shapes in the semi-darkness,
that waS absolutely horrible. As one they made for
the door, but had two dozen different recollections
of its exact position.
High above the chaos Rincewind stared  at
Twoflower.
"Did you cut the lights down?' he hissed.
'Yes.'
'How come you're up here?'
'I thought I'd better not get in everyone's way
Rincewind considered this. There didn't seem to
be much he could say. Twoflower added: "A real
brawl! Better than anything I'd imagined! Do you
think I ought to thank them? Or did you arrange it? '
Rincewind looked at him blankly. "i think we
ought to be getting down now,' he said hollowly.
'Everyone's gone.'
He dragged Twoflower across the littered floor
and up the steps. They burst out into the tail end of
the night. There were still a few stars but the moon
was down, and there was a faint grey glow to
rimward. Most important, the street was empty.
Rincewind sniffed.
"Can you smell oil?' he said.
Then Withel stepped out of the shadows and

tripped him up.

At the top of the cellar steps Broadman knelt down
and fumbled in his tinderbox. It turned out to be
damp.
"i'll kill that bloody cat,' he muttered, and groped
for the spare box that was normally on the ledge by
the door. It was missing. Broadman said a bad
word.
A lighted taper appeared in mid-air, right beside
him.
HERE, TAKE THIS.
"Thanks,' said Broadman

DON'T MENTION IT.
Broadman went to throw the taper down the
steps. His hand paused in mid-air. He looked at the
taper, his brow furrowing. Then he turned around
and held the taper up to illuminate the scene. It
didn't shed much light, but it did give the darkness
a shape . . .
"Oh, no' he breathed.
BUTT YES, said Death.

Rincewind rolled.
for a moment he thought Withel was going to spit
him where he lay. But it was worse than that. He
was waiting for him to get up.
'I see you have a sword, wizard,' he said quietly. "I
suggest you rise, and we shall see how well you use
it.' Rincewind Stood up as slowly as he dared, and

drew from his belt the short sword he had taken
from the guard a few hours and a hundred years
ago. It was a short blunt affair compared to Withel 's
hair-thin rapier.
"But I don't know how to use a sword,' he wailed.
"Good.'
'You know that wizards can't be killed by edged
weapons?' Said Rincewind desperately.
Withel smiled coldly. "So I have heard,' he said. "i
look forward to putting it to the test.' He lunged.
Rincewind caught the thrust by sheer luck, jerked
his hand away in Shock, deflected the second stroke
by coincidence, and took the third one through his
robe at heart-height.
There was a clink.
Withel's Snarl of triumph died in his throat. He
drew the sword out and prodded again at the
wizard, who was rigid with terror and guilt. There
was another clink, and gold coins began to drop out
of the hem of the wizard's robe.
"So you bleed gold, do you?' hissed Withel. can't
have you got gold concealed in that raggedy beard,
you little'
As his Sword went back for his final sweep the
sullen glow that had been growing in the doorway
of the Broken Drum flickered, dimmed, and erupted
into a roaring fireball that sent the walls billowing
outward and carried the roof a hundred feet into the
air before bursting through it, in a gout of red-hot
tiles.
Withel stared at the boiling flames, unnerved.
And Rincewind leapt. He ducked under the thief's
sword arm and brought his own blade around in
an arc so incompetently misjudged that it hit the man
flat-first and jolted out of the wizard's hand. Sparks
and droplets of flaming oil rained down as Withel
reached out with both gauntleted hands and
grabbed Rincewind's neck, forcing him down.
"You did this!' he screamed. "You and your box of
triCkery. '
His thumb found Rincewind's windpipe. This is
it, the wizard thought. Wherever I'm going, it can't
be worse than here . . .
"Excuse me,' said Twoflower.
Rincewind felt the grip lessen. And now Withel
was slowly getting up, a look of absolute hatred on
his face.
A glowing ember landed on the wizard. He
brushed it off hurriedly, and scrambled to his feet.
Twoflower was behind Withel, holding the man's
own needle-sharp sword with the point resting in
the small of the thiefs back. Rincewind's eyes
narrowed. He reached into his robe, then withdrew
his hand bunched into a fist.
"Don't move,' he said.
"Am I doing this right?' asked Twoflower anxiously.
'He says he'll skewer your liver if you move,'
Rincewind translated freely.
"i doubt it,' said Withel.
"Bet?'
"no!.''
As Withel tensed himself to turn on the tourist
Rincewind lashed out and caught the thief on the
jaw. Withel stared at him in amazement for a
moment, and then quietly toppled into the mud.
The wizard uncurled his stinging fist and the roll
of gold coins slipped between his throbbing fingers.
He looked down at the recumbent thief.
"Good grief,' he gasped.

He looked up and yelled as another ember landed
on his neck. Flames were racing along the rooftops
on the other side of the street. All around him people
were hurling possessions from windows and dragging
horses from smoking stables. Another explosion in
the white-hot volcano that was the Drum sent a
whole marble mantelpiece scything overhead.
'The Widdershin Gate's the nearest!' Rincewind
shouted above the crackle of collapsing rafters.
"come on!'
He grabbed Twoflower's reluctant arm and
dragged him down the street.
"my luggage!'
"blast your luggage. Stay here much longer and
you'll go where you don't need luggage. Come on!'
screamed rincewind.
They jogged on through the crowd of frightened
people leaving the area, while the wizard took great
mouthfuls of cool dawn air. Something was 
puzzling him.
"I'm sure all the candles went out,' he said. "So
how did the Drum catch fire?'
"i don't know,' moaned Twoflower. "it's terrible,
Rincewind. We were getting along so well, too.'
Rincewind stopped in astonishment, so that
another refugee cannoned into him and spun away
with an oath.
"Getting on?'
"Yes, a great bunch of fellows, I thought 
language was a bit of a problem, but they were so
keen for me to join their party, they just wouldn't
take' no for an answer - really friendly people, I
thought . . .'
Rincewind started to correct him, then realised he
didn't know how to begin.
"it'll be a blow for old Broadman,' Twoflower
continued. "Still, he was wise. I've still got the rhinu
he paid as his first premium.'
Rincewind didn't know the meaning of the word
premium, but his mind was working fast.
"You inn-soered the Drum?' he said. "You bet
Broadman it wouldn't catch fire?'
'Oh yes. Standard valuation. Two hundred rhinu,
Why do you ask?'
Rincewind turned and stared at the flames racing
towards them, and wondered how much of Ankh
Morpork could be bought for two hundred rhinu.
Quite a large piece, he decided. Only not now, not
the way those flames were moving . . .
He glanced down at the tourist.
"You-' he began, and searched his memory for

the worst word in the Trob tongue; the happy little
beTrobi didn't really know how to swear properly.
"You,' he repeated. Another hurrying figure

bumped into him, narrowly missing him with the
blade over its shoulder. Rincewind's tortured 
temper exploded.
"You little (such a one who, while wearing a

copper nose ring, stands in a footbath atop Mount
Raruaruaha during a heavy thunderstorm and
shouts that Alohura, Goddess of Lightning, has the
facial features of a diseased uloruaha root.'
JUST DOING MY JOB, said the figure, stalking off.
Every word fell as heavily as slabs of marble;
moreover, Rincewind was certain that he was the
only one who heard them.
He grabbed Twoflower again.
"Let's get out of here!' he suggested.

One interesting side effect of the fire in 
AnkhMorpork concerns the inn-sewer-ants policy, which
left the city through the ravaged roof of the Broken
Drum, was wafted high into the discworld's 
atmosphere on the ensuing thermal, and came to earth
several days and a few thousand miles away on an
uloruaha bush in the beTrobi islands. The simple,
laughing islanders subsequently worshipped it as a
god, much to the amusement of their more 
sophisticated neighbours. Strangely enough the rainfall
and harvests in the next few years were almost
.supernaturally abundant, and this led to a research
team being despatched to the islands by the Minor
Religions faculty of Unseen University. Their
verdict was that it only went to show.

The fire, driven by the wind, spread out from the
Drum faster than a man could walk. The timbers of
the Widdershin Gate were already on fire when
Rincewind, his face blistered and reddened from the
flames, reached them. By now he and Twoflower
were on horseback - mounts hadn't been that hard
to obtain. A wily merchant had asked fifty times
their worth, and had been left gaping when one
thousand times their worth had been pressed into
hiS hands.
They rode through just before the first of the big
gate timbers descended in an explosion of sparks
Morpork was already a cauldron of flame.
As they galloped up the red-lit road Rincewind
glanced sideways at his travelling companion
currently trying hard to learn to ride a horse.
"Bloody hell,' he thought. "He's alive! Me too.
Who'd have thought it? Perhaps there is something
in this reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?' It was a cumbersome phrase. Rincewind tried to get

his tongue round the thick syllables that were the
word in Twoflower's own language.
"Ecornoex?'he tried. "Ecro-gnothics? Echo-gnomicS?
That would do. That sounded about right.

Several hundred yards downriver from the last
smouldering suburb of the city a strangely 
rectangular and apparently heavily-waterlogged object
touched the mud on the widdershin bank. 
Immediately it sprouted numerous legs and scrabbled for a
purchase.
Hauling itself to the top of the bank the 
Luggage-Streaked with soot, stained with water and very
very angry - shook itself and took its bearings.
Then it moved away at a brisk trot, the small and
incredibly ugly imp that was perching on its lid
watching the scenery with interest.

Bravd looked at the Weasel and raised his 
eyebrows.
"And that's it,' said Rincewind, "The Luggage

caught up with us, don't ask me how. Is there any
more wine?'
The Weasel picked up the empty wineskin.
"i think you have had just about enough wine this

night,' he said.
Bravd's forehead wrinkled.
'Gold is gold,' he said finally. 'How can a man
with plenty of gold consider himself poor? You're
either poor or rich. It stands to reason

Rincewind hiccupped. He was finding Reason
rather difficult to hold on to. "Well,' he said, "what I
think is, the point is, well, you know octiron?'
The two adventurers nodded. The strange 
iridescent metal was almost as highly valued in the lands
around the Circle Sea as sapient pearwood, and was
about as rare. A man who owned a needle made of
octiron would never lose his way, since it always
pointed to the Hub of the discworld, being acutely
sensitive to the disc's magical field; it would also
miraculously darn his socks.
'Well, my point is, you see, that gold also has its
sort of magical field. Sort of financial wizardry.
Echo-gnomics.' Rincewind giggled.
The Weasel stood up and stretched. The sun was
well up now, and the city below them was wreathed
in mists and full of foul vapours. Also gold, he
decided. Even a citizen of Morpork would, at the
very point of death, desert his treasure to save his
skin. Time to move.
The little man called Twoflower appeared to be
asleep' the Weasel looked down at him and shook
his head. 'The city awaits, such as it is,' he said . "Thank you

for a pleasant tale, Wizard. What will you do now?'
He eyed the  Luggage, which immediately backed
away and snapped its lid at him.
"Well, there are no ships leaving the city now,'
giggled Rincewind. "I suppose we'll take the coast
road to Quirm. I've got to look after him, you see.
But look, I didn't make it-'
"Sure, sure,' said the Weasel soothingly. He

turned away and swung himself into the saddle of the
horse that Bravd was holding. A few moments later
the two heroes were just specks under a cloud of
dust, heading down towards the charcoal city.
Rincewind stared muzzily at the recumbent
tourist. At two recumbent tourists. In his somewhat
defenceless state a stray thought, wandering
through the dimensions in search of a mind to
harbour it, slid into his brain.
"Here's another fine mess you've got me into,' he

moaned, and slumped backwards.

'Mad,' said the Weasel. Bravd, galloping along a
few feet away, nodded.
"All wizards get like that,' he said. "it's the
quicksilver fumes. Rots their brains. Mushrooms,
too '

HHowever-' said the brown-clad one. He reached
into his tunic and took out a golden disc on a short
chain. Bravd raised his eyebrows.
"The wizard said that the little man had some sort
of golden disc that told him the time,' said the
Weasel.
'ArouSing your cupidity, little friend? You always
were an expert thief, Weasel.'
"Aye,' agreed the Weasel modestly. He touched
the knob at the disc's rim, and it flipped open.
The very small demon imprisoned within looked
up from its tiny abacus and scowled. 'it lacks but
ten minutes to eight of the clock,' it snarled. The lid
slammed shut, almost trapping the Weasel's fingers
With an oath the Weasel hurled the time-teller far
out into the heather, where it possibly hit a stone.
Something, in any event, caused the case to split'.
there was a vivid octarine flash and a whiff of
brimstone as the time being vanished into whatever
demonic dimension it called home.
"What did you do that for?' said Bravd, who

hadn't been close enough to hear the words.
"do what?' said the Weasel. "i didn't do anything
Nothing happened at all. Come on - we're wasting
opportunities! '

Bravd nodded. Together they turned their steeds
and galloped towards ancient Ankh, and honest
enchantments.
tHE SENDING OF EIGHT

PROLOGUE

The discworld offers sights far more impressive
than those found in universes built by Creators with
less imagination but more mechanical aptitude.
Although the disc's sun is but an orbiting
moonlet, its prominences hardly bigger than croquet
hoops, this slight drawback must be set against the
tremendous sight of Great A'Tuin the Turtle, upon
Whose ancient and meteor-riddled shell the disc
ultimately rests. Sometimes, in His slow journey
acroSS the shores of infinity, He moves His 
countrysized head to Snap at a passing comet.
But perhaps the most impressive sight of all - if
only because most brains, when faced with the
Sheer galactic enormity of A'Tuin, refuse to believe
it- is the endless Rimfall, where the seas of the disc
boil ceaselessly over the Edge into space. Or
perhapS it is the Rimbow, the eight-coloured, 
worldgirdling rainbow that hovers in the mist-laden air
over the Fall. The eighth colour is octarine, caused
by the scatter-effect of strong sunlight on an
intense magical field.
Or perhaps, again, the most magnificent sight is
the Hub. There, a spire of green ice ten miles high
rises through the clouds and supports at its peak the
realm of Dunmanifestin, the abode of the disc gods.
The disc gods themselves, despite the splendour of
the world below them, are seldom satisfied. It is
embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world
that only exists because every improbability curve
must have its far end; especially when one can peer
into other dimensions at worlds whose Creators
had more mechanical aptitude than imagination
No wonder, then, that the disc gods spend more
time in bickering than in omnicognizance.
On this particular day Blind Io, by dint oF
constant vigilance the chief of the gods, sat with his
chin on his hand and looked at the gaming board on
the red marble table in front of him. Blind Io had got
his name because, where his eye sockets should
have been, there were nothing but two areas of
blank skin. His eyes, of which he had an 
impressively large number, led a semi-independent life of
their own. Several were currently hovering above'
the table.
The gaming board was a carefully-carved map of
the disc world, overprinted with squares. A number
of beautifully modelled playing pieces were now
occupying some of the squares. A human onlooker
would, for example, have recognized in two of them
the likenesses of Bravd and the Weasel. Others
represented yet more heroes and champions, of
which the disc had a more than adequate supply. Still in the game were Io, Offler the Crocodile God,

Zephyrus the god of slight breezes, Fate, and the
lady'. There was an air of concentration around the
board now that the lesser players had been removed
from the Game. Chance had been an early casualty,
running her hero into a full house of armed gnolls
(the result of a lucky throw by Offler) and shortly
afterwards Night had cashed his chips, pleading an"
appointment with Destiny. Several minor deitieS
had drifted up and were kibitzing over the shoulders
of the players.
Side bets were made that the Lady would be the
next to leave the board. Her last champion of any
standing was now a pinch of potash in the ruins of
still-smoking Ankh-Morpork. and there were hardly
any pieces that she could promote to first rank.
Blind Io took up the dice-box, which was a skull various orifices had been stoppered with
rubies, and  with several of his eyes on the lady he

rolled three fives.
She smiled This was the nature of the Lady's
eyes: they were bright green, lacking iris or pupil,
and they glowed from within.
The room was silent as she scrabbled in her box of
pieces and, from the very bottom, produced a couple
that she set down on the board with two decisive
clicks. The rest of the playerS, as one God, craned
forward to peer at them.
"A wenegad wiffard and tome fort of clerk,' said
Offler the Crocodile God, hindered as usual by hiS
tuskS. 'Well, weally! ' With one claw he pushed a pile
of bone-white tokens into the centre of the table.
The Lady nodded slightly. She picked up the 
dicecup and held it as steady as a rock, yet all the Gods
could hear the three cubes rattling about inside.
And then She sent them bouncing across the table.
A six. A three. A five.
Something was happening to the five, however.
Battered by the chance collision of several billion
molecules, the die flipped onto a point, spun gently
and came down a seven.

Blind Io picked up the cube
and counted the sides. cCome on,' he
said wearily

play fair.'
THE SENDING OF EIGHT

The road from Ankh-Morpork to Quirm is high,
white and winding, a thirty-league stretch of
potholes and half-buried rocks that spirals around
mountains and dips into cool green valleys of citrus
trees, crosses liana-webbed gorges on creaking rope
bridges and is generally more picturesque than

Picturesque. That was a new word to Rincewind
the wizard (Being Unseen University failed.) It
was one of a number he had picked up since leaving
the charred ruins of Ankh-Morpork. Quaint was
another one. Picturesque meant - he decided after
careful observation of the scenery that inspired
Twoflower to use the word - that the landscape was
horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe
the occasional village through which they passed,
meant fever-ridden and tumbledown.
Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the
discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant
'idiot'.
As they rode leisurely through the thyme-scented
bee-humming air, Rincewind pondered on the
experiences of the last few days. While the little
foreigner was obviously insane, he was also
generous and considerably less lethal than half the
people the wizard had mixed with in the city
Rincewind rather liked him. Disliking him would have been
like kicking a puppy.
Currently Twoflower was showing a great interest
in the theory and practice of magic.
"it all seems, well, rather useless to me,' he said. 'I
always thought that, you know, a wizard just said
the magic words and that was that. Not all this
dioqe memorising.
Rincewind agreed moodily. He tried to explain
that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless,
but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the
Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other
things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this
demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal
should be the same regardless of the means used . In
practical terms this meant that, say, creating the
illuSion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since
it involved merely the subtle shifting of light
patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine
wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental
energY required several hours of systematic 
preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple
principle of leverage flicking his brain out through
his ears.
He went on to add that some of the ancient magic
could still be found in its raw state, recognisable- to
the initiated - by the eightfold shape it made in the
crystalline Structure of space-time. There was the
metal octiron, for example, and the gas octogen
Both radiated dangerous amounts of raw 
enchantment.
"it's all very depressing,' he finished.
"Depressing?"
rincewind turned in his saddle and glanced at
Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling
along on itS little legs, occasionally snapping its lid
at butterflies. He sighed.
'Rincewind thinks he ought to be able to harness
the lightning,' said the picture-imp, who was
observing the passing scene from the tiny doorway
of the box slung around Twoflower's neck. He had
Spent the morning painting picturesque views and
quaint SceneS for his master, and had been allowed
to knock off for a smoke.
'When I said harness I didn't mean harness,
snapped Rincewind. 'I meant, well I just meant that
- I dunno,I just can't think of the right words. I just
think the world ought to be more sort of organised.'
"That's just fantasy,' said Twoflower.
"i know. That's the trouble.' Rincewind sighed

again. It was all very well going on about pure logic
and how the universe was ruled by logic and the
harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the
matter was that the disc was manifestly traversing
space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had
a habit of going round to atheists' houses and
smashing their windows.
There was a faint sound, hardly louder than the
noise of the bees in the rosemary by the road. It had
a curiously bony quality, as of rolling skulls or a
whirling dicebox. Rincewind peered around. There
was no-one nearby.
For some reason that worried him.
Then came a slight breeze, that grew and went in
the space of a few heartbeats. It left the world
unchanged save in a few interesting particulars.
There was now, for example, a five-metre tall
mountain troll standing in the road. It was
exceptionally angry. This was partly because trolls
generally are, in any case, but it was exacerbated
by the fact that the sudden and instantaneous
teleportation from its lair in the Rammerorck
Mountains three thousand miles away and a
thousand yards closer to the Rim had raised its
internal temperature to a dangerous level, in
accordance with the laws of conservation of energy.
So it bared its fangs and charged.
"What a strange creature,' Twoflower remarked,

'is it dangerous?'
"Only to people!' shouted Rincewind. He drew his

sword and, with a smooth overarm throw, 
completely failed to hit the troll. The blade plunged on
into the heather at the side of the track
There was the faintest of sounds, like the rattle of
old teeth. The sword struck a boulder concealed in the

heather - concealed, a watcher might have 
considered, so artfully that a moment before it had not
appeared to be there at all. It sprang up like a
leaping Salmon and in mid-ricochet plunged deeply
'into the back of the troll's grey neck.
The creature grunted, and with one swipe of a
claw gouged a wound in the flank of Twoflower's
horse, which screamed and bolted into the trees at
the roadside. The troll spun around and made a
grab for Rincewind.
Then its sluggish nervous system brought it the
message that it was dead. It looked surprised for a
moment, and then toppled over and shattered into
gravel (trolls being silicaceous lifeforms, their
bodies reverted instantly to stone at the moment of
death).
'Aaargh,' thought Rincewind as his horse reared
in terror. He hung on desperately as it staggered
two-legged across the road and then, screaming,
turned and galloped into the woods.
The sound of hoofbeats died away, leaving the air
to the hum of bees and the occasional rustle of
butterfly wingS. There was another sound, too, a
strange noiSe for the bright time of noonday.
It sounded like dice.

"Rincewind?'
The long aiSles of trees threw Twoflower's voice
from side to side and eventually tossed it back to
him, unheeded. He sat down on a rock and tried to
think.
FirStly, he was lost. That was vexing, but it did
not worry him unduly. The forest looked quite
interesting and probably held elves or gnomes,
perhaps both. In fact on a couple of occasions he
had thought he had seen strange green faces
peering down at him from the branches. Twoflower
had always wanted to meet an elf. In fact what he
really wanted to meet was a dragon, but an elf
would do. Or a real goblin.
His Luggage was missing, and that was 
annoying. It was also starting to rain. He squirmed
uncomfortably on the damp stone, and tried to look
on the bright side. for example, during its mad
dash his plunging horse had burst through some
rushes and disturbed a she-bear with her cubs, but
had gone on before the bear could react. Then it had
suddenly been galloping over the sleeping bodies of
a large wolf pack and, again, its mad speed had
been such that the furious yelping had been left far
behind. Nevertheless, the day was wearing on and
perhaps it would be a good idea - Twoflower
thought - not to hang about, in the open. Perhaps
there was a...he racked his brains trying to
remember what sort of accommodation forests
traditionally offered . . . perhaps there was a ginger
bread house or something?
The stone really was uncomfortable. Twoflower
looked down and, for the first time, noticed the
strange carving.
It looked like a spider. Or was it a squid? Moss and
lichens rather blurred the precise details. But they
didn't blur the runes carved below it. Twoflower
could read them clearly, and they said: Traveller
the hospitable temple of Bel-Shamharoth lies one
thousand paces Hubwards. Now this was strange,
Twoflower realized, because although he could read
the message the actual letters were completely
unknown to him. Somehow the message was
arriving in his brain without the tedious necessity
of passing through his eyes.
He stood up and untied his now-riddable horse
from a sapling. He wasn't sure which way the Hub
lay. but there seemed to be an old track of sorts
leading away between the trees. This 
Bel-Shamharoth seemed prepared to go out of his way to help
stranded travellers. In any case, it was that or the
wolves. Twoflower nodded decisively.
It is interesting to note that, several hours later, a
couple of wolves who were following Twoflower's
scent arrived in the glade. Their green eyes fell on
the strange eight-legged carving - which may
indeed have been a spider, or an octopus, or may yet
again have been something altogether more strange
- and they immediately decided that they weren't so
hungry, at that.

About three miles away a failed wizard was
hanging by his hands from a high branch in a
beech tree.
This was the end result of five minutes of crowded
activity. First, an enraged she-bear had barged
through the undergrowth and taken the throat out
of his horse with one swipe of her paw. Then, as
Rincewind had fled the carnage, he had run into a
glade in which a number of irate wolves were
milling about. His instructors at Unseen 
University, who had despaired of Rincewind's inability to
maSter levitation, would have then been amazed at
the speed with which he reached and climbed the
nearest tree, without apparently touching it.
Now there was just the matter of the snake. '
It waS large and green, and wound itself along the
branch with reptilian patience. Rincewind 
wondered if it was poisonous, then chided himself for
aSking Such a silly question. Of course it would be
poiSonous.
"What are you grinning for?' he asked the figure
on the next branch.
I CAN'T HELP IT, said Death. NOW WOULD YOU BE SO
KIND AS TO LET GO? I CAN'T HANG AROUND AlL DAY.
"i can,' said Rincewind defiantly.
The wolves clustered around the base of the tree
looked up with interest at their next meal talking to
himself.
IT WON'T HURT, said Death. If words had weight, a
single sentence from Death would have anchored a
ship.
Rincewind's arms screamed their agony at him.
He scowled at the vulture-like, slightly transparent
figure.
"Won't hurt? ' he said. ' Being torn apart by wolves
won't hurt?'
He noticed another branch crossing his 
dangerously narrowing one a few feet away. If he coUld
just reach it . . .
He swung himself forward, one hand outstretched.
The branch, already bending, did not break. It
simply made a wet little sound and twisted.
Rincewind found that he was now hanging on to
the end of a tongue of bark and fibre, lengthening aS
it peeled away from the tree. He looked down, and
with a sort of fatal satisfaction realized that he
would land right on the biggest wolf.
Now he was moving slowly as the bark peeled
back in a longer and longer strip. The snake
watched him thoughtfully.
But the growing length of bark held. Rincewind
began to congratulate himself until, looking up, he
saw what he had hitherto not noticed. There was
the largest hornets' nest he had ever seen, hanging
right in his path.
He shut his eyes tightly.
Why the troll? he asked himself. Everything else
is just my usual luck, but why the troll? What the
hell is going on?
Click. It may have been a twig snapping, except
that the sound appeared to be inside Rincewind's
head. Click, click. And a breeze that failed to set a
single leaf atremble.
.The hornets' nest was ripped from the branch as
the strip passed by. It shot past the wizard's head
and he watched it grow smaller as it plummeted
towards the circle of upturned muzzles.
The circle suddenly closed.
The circle suddenly expanded.
The concerted yelp of pain as the pack fought to
escape the furious cloud echoed among the trees.
Rincewind grinned inanely.
Rincewind's elbow nudged something. It was the
tree trunk. The strip had carried him right to the
end of the branch. But there were no other branches.
The smooth bark beside him offered no handholds.
It offered hands, though. Two were even now
thrusting through the mossy bark beside him; slim
hands, green as young leaves. Then a shapely arm
followed, and then the hamadryad leaned right out
and graSped the astonished wizard firmly and, with
that vegetable strength that can send roots
queSting into rock, drew him into the tree. The solid
bark parted like a mist, closed like a clam.
Death watched impassively.
He glanced at the cloud of mayflies that were
dancing their joyful zigzags near His skull. He
snapped His fingers. The insects fell .out of the air.
But, Somehow, it wasn't quite the same.

Blind Io pushed his stack of chips across the table,
glowered through such of his eyes that were
currently in the room, and strode out. A few
demigods tittered. At least Offler had taken the loss
of a perfectly good troll with precise, if somewhat
reptilian, grace.
The Lady's last opponent shifted his seat until he
faced her across the board.
"lord,' She said, politely.
"Lady,' he acknowledged. Their eyes met.
He was a taciturn god. It was said that he had
arrived in the Discworld after some terrible and
mysterious incident in another Eventuality. It iS Of
course the pri vilege of gods to control their apparent
outward form, even to other gods; the Fate of the
discworld was currently a kindly man in late
middle age, greying hair brushed neatly around
features that a maiden would confidently proffer a
glass of small beer to, should they appear at her
back door. It was a face a kindly youth would gladly
help over a stile. Except for his eyes, of course.
No deity can disguise the manner and nature of
his eyes. The nature of the two eyes of the Fate of the
discworld was this: that while at a mere glance they
were simply dark, a closer look would reveal - too
late! - that they were but holes opening on to a
blackness so remote, so deep that the watcher would
feel himself inexorably drawn into the twin pools of
infinite night and their terrible, wheeling stars . . .
The lady coughed politely, and laid twenty-one
white chips on the table. Then from her robe she
took another chip, silvery and translucent and
twice the size of the others. The soul of a true Hero
always finds a better rate of exchange, and is
valued highly by the gods.
Fate raised an eyebrow.
"And no cheating, Lady.' he said.
'But who could cheat Fate?' she asked. He
shrugged.
"No-one. Yet everyone tries.'
"And yet, again, I believe I felt you giving me a

little assistance against the others?'
"But of course. So that the endgame could be the

sweeter, lady. And now . . .'
He reached into his gaming box and brought
forth a piece, setting it down on the board with a
satisfied air. The watching deities gave a collective
Sigh. Even the Lady was momentarily taken aback.
it was certainly ugly. The carving was uncertain,
as if the craftsman's hands were shaking in horror
of the thing taking shape under his reluctant
fingers. It seemed to be all suckers and tentacles.
And mandibles, the lady observed. And one great
eye.
"I thought such as He died out at the beginnings
of Time,' she said.
"Mayhap our necrotic friend was loathe even to go
near this one,' laughed Fate. He was enjoying
himself.
"it should never have been spawned.'
"Nevertheless,' said Fate gnomically. He scooped
the dice into their unusual box, and then glanced up
at her.
"Unless,' he added, "you wish to resign
She shook her head.
"Play,' she said.
"You can match my stake

Rincewind knew what was inside trees: wood, sap,
posSibly squirrels. Not a palace.
Still- the cushions underneath him were definitely
softer than wood, the wine in the wooden cup beside
him was much tastier than sap, and there could be
absolutely no comparison between a squirrel and
the girl sitting before him, clasping her knees and
watching him thoughtfully, unless mention was
made of certain hints of furriness.
The room was high, wide and lit with a soft yellow
light which came from no particular source that
Rincewind could identify. Through gnarled and
knotted archways he could see other rooms, and
what looked like a very large winding staircase.
And it had looked a perfectly normal tree from the
OUtSide, too.
The girl was green- flesh green. Rincewind could
be absolutely certain about that, because all she
was wearing was a medallion around her neck. Her
long hair had a faintly mossy look about it. Her eyes
had no pupils and were a luminous green. 
Rincewind wished he had paid more attention to 
anthropology lectures at University.
She had said nothing. Apart from indicating the
couch and offering him the wine she had done no
more than sit watching him, occasionally rubbing a
deep scratch on her arm.
Rincewind hurriedly recalled that a dryad was so
linked to her tree that she suffered wounds in

sympathy"Sorry about that,' he said quickly. "it was just an

accident. I mean, there were these wolves, and-'
"You had to climb my tree, and I rescued you,' said

the dryad smoothly. "How lucky for you. And for
your friend, perhaps?'
'Friend?'
"The little man with the magic box,' said the
dryad.
"Oh, sure, him,' said Rincewind vaguely. "Yeah

hope he's okay.'
"He needs your help.'
"He usually does. Did he make it to a tree too?'
"He made it to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth.'
Rincewind choked on his wine. His ears tried to
crawl into his head in terror of the syllables they
had just heard. The Soul Eater before he could stop
them the memories came galloping back. Once,
while a student of practical magic at Unseen
University, and for a bet, he'd slipped into the little
room off the main library - the room with walls
covered in protective lead pentagrams, the room
no-one was allowed to occupy for more than four
minutes and thirty-two seconds, which was a figure
arrived at after two hundred years of cautious
experimentation
He had gingerly opened the Book, which was
chained to the octiron pedestal in the middle of the
rune-strewn floor not lest someone steal it, but lest it
escape for it was the Octavo, so full of magic that it
had its own vague sentience. One spell had indeed
leapt from the crackling pageS and lodged itself in
the dark recesses of his brain. And, apart from
knowing that it was one of the Eight Great Spells,
no-one would know which one until he said it. Even
Rincewind did not. But he could feel it sometimes,
sidling out of sight behind his Ego, biding itS
time . . .
On the front of the Octavo had been a 
representation of Bel-Shamharoth. He was not Evil, for even
EVIl has a certain vitality - Bel-Shamharoth was
the,flip Side of the coin of which Good and evil are
but one side.
"The Soul Eater. His number lyeth between seven
and nine; it is twice four,' Rincewind quoted, his
mind frozen with fear. "Oh no. Where's the Temple?' "Hubwards, towards the centre of the forest,' said

the dryad. "it is very old.'
"But who would be so stupid as to worship 
Belhim? I mean, devils yes, but he's the Soul Eater-'
'There were - certain advantages. And the race
that used to live in these parts had strange notions.'
'What happened to them, then?'
"i did 'say they used to live in these parts."the
dryad stood up and stretched out her hand. "Come. I
am Druellae. Come with me and watch your friend's
fate. It should be interesting.'
"i'm not sure that-' began Rincewind.

The dryad turned her green eyes on him.
"do you believe you have a choice?' she asked

A staircaSe broad as a major highwaY wound up
through the tree, with vast rooms leading off at
every landing. The sourceless yellow light was
everywhere. There was also a sound like - 
Rincewind concentrated, trying to identify it- like far off
thunder, or a distant waterfall.
"it's the tree,' said the dryad shortly.
"What's it doing?' said Rincewind.
"Living.'
" I wondered about that. I mean, are we really in a
tree? Have I been reduced in size? From outside it
looked narrow enough for me to put my arms
around.'
"it iS.'
"Um, but here I am inside it?
'You are.'
"I'm,' said Rincewind.
Druellae laughed.
"i can see into your mind, false wizard! am I not a

dryad? Do you not know that, what you belittle by
the name tree is but the mere four-dimensional
analogue of a whole multidimensional universe
which - no, I can see you do not. I should have
realised that you weren't a real wizard when I saw
you didn't have a staff.'
"Lost it in a fire,' lied Rincewind automatically
"No hat with magic sigils embroidered on it.
it blew off.'
no familiar.
"it died. Look, thanks for rescuing me, but if you
don't mind I think I ought to be going. If you could
show me the way out-'
Something in her expression made him turn
around. There were three he-dryads behind him.
They were as naked as the woman, and unarmed.
That last fact was irrelevant, however. They didn't
look as though they would need weapons to fight
Rincewind. They , looked as though they could
shoulder their way through solid rock and beat up a
regiment of trolls into the bargain. The three
handsome giants looked down at him with wooden
menace.' Their Skins were the colour of walnut
husks, and under it muscles bulged like sacks of
melons. He turned around again and grinned weakly at

Druellae. Life was beginning to take on a familiar
shape again. 'i'm not rescued, am I?' he said. 'i'm captured,

right?' "Of course.'

"And you're not letting me go?' It was a 
statement. Druellae shook her head. "You hurt the Tree. But

you are lucky. Your friend is going to meet 
BelShamharoth. You will only die.'
From behind two hands gripped his shoulders in
much the same way that an old tree root coils
relentlessly around a pebble.
"With a certain amount of ceremony, of course,'

the dryad went on. "After the Sender of Eight has
finished with your friend.'
All Rincewind could manage to say was, "You
know, I never imagined there were he-dryads. Not
even in an oak tree.'
One of the giants grinned at him.
Druellae snorted. "Stupid! Where do you think
acorns come from?'
There was a vast empty space like a hall, its roof
loSt in the golden haze. The endless stair ran right
through it.
Several hundred dryads were clustered at the
other end of the hall. They parted respectfully
when Druellae approached, and stared through
Rincewind as he was propelled firmly along behind.
Most of them were females, although there were a
few of the giant males among them. They stood like
god-shaped statues among the small, intelligent
females. Insects, thought Rincewind. The Tree is
like a hive.
But why were there dryads at all? As far as he
could recall, the tree people had died out centuries
before. They had been out-evolved by humans, like
most of the other Twilight Peoples. only elves and
trolls had survived the coming of Man to the
discworld; the elves because they were altogether
too clever by half, and the troller-folk because they
were at least as good as humans at being nasty,
spiteful and greedy. Dryads were supposed to have
died out, along with gnomes and pixies.
The background roar was louder here. 
Sometimes a pulsing golden glow would race up the
translucent walls until it was lost in the haze
overhead. Some power in the air made it vibrate.
"now incompetent wizard,' said Druellae, "see some

magic. Not your weasel-faced tame magic, but root
and -branch magic, the old magic. Wild magic.
Watch.'
Fifty or so of the females formed a tight cluster,
joined hands and walked backwards until they
formed the circumference of a large circle. The rest
of the dryads began a low chant. Then, at a nod
from Druellae, the circle began to spin 
widderShinS.
As the pace began to quicken and the complicated
threads of the chant began to rise Rincewind found
himself watching fascinated. He had heard about
the Old Magic at University, although it was
forbidden to wizards. He knew that when the circle
was spinning fast enough against the standing
magical field of the discworld itself in its slow
turning, the resulting astral friction would build up
a vast potential difference which would earth itSelf
in a vast discharge of the Elemental Magical Force,
the circle was a blur now, and the walls of the
Tree rang with the echoes of the 
chantRincewind felt the familiar sticky prickling in the
scalp that indicated the build-up of a heavy charge
of raw enchantment in the vicinity, and so he was
not utterly amazed when, a few seconds later, a
shaft of vivid octarine light speared down from the
invisible ceiling and focused, crackling, in the
centre of the circle.
There it formed an image of a storm-swept, 
treegirt hill with a temple on its crest. Its shape did
unpleasant things to the eye. Rincewind knew that
if it was a temple to Bel-Shamharoth it would have
eight sides. (Eight was also the Number of 
BelShamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard
would never mention the number if he could avoid
it. Or you'll be eight alive, apprentices were
jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially
attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it
were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural
were already half-enmeshed in his nets. 
Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had
been 7a. He hadn't been surprised).

Rain streamed off the black walls of the temple. The
only sign of life was the horse tethered outside, and
it wasn't Twoflower's horse. For one thing, it was
too big. It was a white charger with hooves the size
of meat dishes and leather harness aglitter with
ostentatious gold ornamentation. It was currently
enjoying a nosebag. There was something familiar about it. 
Rince
wind tried to remember where he had seen it before.
It looked as though it was capable of a fair turn of
speed,' anyway. A speed which, once it had
lumbered up to it, it could maintain for a long time.
All Rincewind had to do was shake off his guards,
fight his way out of the Tree. find the temple and
Steal the horse out from under whateVer it was that
Belshamharoth used for a nose.
'The Sender of "'eight has two for dinner, it seems.' said Druellae, looking hard at Rincewind. 'Who
does that steed belong to, false wizard?'
"I've no idea.'
"No? Well, it does not matter. We shall see soon

enough.'
She waved a hand. The focus of the image moved
inwards, darted through a great octagonal arch
way and sped along the corridor within.
There was a figure there, sidling along stealthily
with its back against one wall. Rincewind saw the
gleam of gold and bronze.
There was no mistaking that shape. He'd seen it
many times. The wide chest, the neck like a 
treetrunk, the surprisingly small head under its wild
thatch of black hair looking like a tomato on a
coffin . . . he could put a name to the creeping
figure, and that name was Hrun the Barbarian.
Hrun was one of the Circle Sea's more durable
heroes: a fighter of dragons, a despoiler of temples,
a hired sword, the kingpost of every street brawl,
He could even - and unlike many heroes of
Rincewind's acquaintance - speak words of more
than two syllables, if given time and maybe a hint
or two.
There was a sound on the edge of Rincewind's
hearing. It sounded like several skulls bouncing
down the steps of some distant dungeon. He looked
sideways at his guards to see if they had heard it.
They had all their limited attention focused on
Hrun, who was admittedly built on the same lines
as themselves. Their hands were resting lightly on
the wizard's shoulders.
Rincewind ducked, jerked backwards like a
tumbler, and came up running. Behind him he
heard Druellae shout, and he redoubled his speed.
Something caught the hood of his robe, which
tore off. A he-dryad waiting at the stairs spread his arms.
hurtling towards him. Without breaking his stride
Rincewind ducked again, so low that his chin was
on a level with his knees, while a fist like a log
sizzled through the air by his ear.
Ahead of him a whole spinney of the tree men
awaited. He spun around, dodged another blow
from the puzzled guard, and sped back towards the
circle, passing on the way the dryads who were
pursuing him and leaving them as disorganized as
a set of skittles.
But there were still more in front, pushing their
way through the crowds of females and smacking
their fists into the horny palms of their hands with
anticipatory concentration.
"Stand still, false wizard,' said Druellae, stepping
forward. Behind her the enchanted dancers spun
on, the focus of the circle was now drifting along a
violet-lit corridor.
Rincewind cracked.
"Will you knock that off ' he snarled . " "let's just get
this Straight, right? I am, a real wizard! ' He stamped
a foot petulantly. '
'indeed?' said the dryad. "Then let us see you pass
a Spell.'
"uh-' began Rincewind. The fact was that, since
the ancient and mysterious spell had squatted in
his mind, he had been unable to remember even the
Simplest cantrap for, say, killing cockroaches 'or
Scratching the small of his back without using his
hands. The mages at Unseen University had tried
to explain this by suggesting that the involuntary
memorising of the spell had, as it were, tied up all
his spell-retention cells. In his darker moments
Rincewind had come up with his own explanation
as to why even minor Spells refused to stay in hiS
head for more than a few seconds.
They were scared, he decided.
"Um-' he repeated.

'A small one would do,' said Druellae, watching
him curl his lips in A frenzy of anger and 
emberrassment. She signalled, and a couple of he-dryads
closed in.
The Spell chose that moment to vault into the
temporarily-abandoned saddle of Rincewind's 
conSCiousness. He felt it sitting there, leering defiantly
at him.
"i do know a spell,' he said wearily.
"Yes? Pray tell,' said Druellae.

Rincewind wasn't sure that he dared, although
the Spell was trying to take control of his tongue. He
fought it.
'You sed you could read my mind,' he said
indistinctly. "Read it.'
She stepped forward, looking mockingly into his
eyes.
Her smile froze. Her hands raised protectively,
she crouched back. From her throat came a sound of
pure terror.
Rincewind looked around. The rest of the dryads
were also backing away. What had he done?
Something terrible, apparently.
But in his experience it was only a matter of time
before the normal balance of the universe restored
itself and started doing the usual terrible things to
him. He backed away, ducked between the 
stillspinning dryads who were creating the magic
circle, and watched to see what Druellae would do
next.
"Grab him,' she screamed. "Take him a long way

from the Tree and kill him!'
Rincewind turned and bolted.
Across the focus of the circle.
There was a brilliant flash.
There was a sudden darkness.
There was a vaguely Rincewind-shaped violet
shadow, dwindling to a point and winking out.
, There was nothing at all.

Hrun the Barbarian crept soundlessly along the
corridors, which were lit with a light so violet that
it was almost black. His earlier confusion was
gone. ThiS was obviously a magical temple, and
that explained everything.
It explained why, earlier in the afternoon, he had
espied a chest by the side of the track while riding
through this benighted forest. Its top was invitingly
open, displaying much gold. But when he had
leapt off hiS horse to approach it the cheSt had
sprouted legs and had gone trotting off into the
foreSt, stopping again a few hundred yards away.
Now, after several hours of teasing pursuit, he
had lost it in these hell-lit tunnels. On the whole,
the unpleasant carvings and occasional disjointed
skeletons he paSSed held no fears for Hrun. This
was partly because he was not exceptionally bright
while being at the Same time exceptionally 
unimaginative, but it was also because odd carvings
and perilous tunnels were all in a day's work. He
Spent a great deal of time in similar Situations,
seeking gold or demons or distressed virgins and
relieving them respectively of their owners, their
lives and at least one cause of their distress.
Observe Hrun, as he leaps cat-footed across a
sUspicious tunnel mouth. Even in thiS violet light
hiS Skin gleams coppery. There is much gold about
hiS person, in the form of anklets and wristlets, but
otherwise he is naked except for a leopardskin
loincloth. He took that in the steaming forests of
Howondaland, after killing its owner with his
teeth. In hiS right hand he carried the magical black

sword Kring, which was forged from a thunderbolt
and haD a soul but suffers no scabbard. Hrun had
stolen it only three days before from the impregnable 
palace of the Archmandrite of Be Ituni, and he
was already regretting it. It was beginning to get
on his nerves.
"i tell you it went down that last passage on the
right,' hissed Kring in a voice like the scrape of a

blade over stone.
"Be silent, '
"All I said 
was"Shut up!'

And Twoflower . .
He was lost, he knew that. Either the building
was much bigger than it looked, or he was now on
some wide underground level without having gone
down any steps, or - as he was beginning to
suspect - the inner dimensions of the place
disobeyed a fairly basic rule of architecture by
being bigger than the outside. And why all these
strange lights? They were eight-sided crystals set
at regular intervals in the walls and ceiling, and
they shed a rather unpleasant glow that didn't so
much illuminate as outline the darkness.
And whoever had done those carvings on the
wall, Twoflower thought charitably, had probably
been drinking too much. For years.
On the other hand, it was certainly a fascinating
building. Its builders had been obsessed with the
number eight. The floor was a continuous mosaic
of eight-sided tiles, the corridor walls and ceilings
were angled to give the corridors eight sides if the
walls and ceilings were counted and, in those
places where part of the masonry had fallen in
Twoflower noticed that even the stones themselves
had eight sides.

"i don't like it,' said the picture imp, from his box
around Twoflower's neck.
'Why not?' inquired Twoflower.
"it's weird.
'.but you're a demon. Demons can't call things

weird.'I mean, what's weird to a demon? '
"oh, you know,' said the demon cautiously,
glancing around nervously and shifting from claw
to claw. "Things. Stuff.'
Twoflower looked at him sternly. "What things?'
The demon coughed nervously (demons do not
breathe, however, every intelligent being, whether
it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time
in its life. And this was one of them as far as the
demon was concerned).

.Oh, things,' it said wretchedly. "Evil things.
Things we don't talk about is the point I'm broadly
trying to get across, master.'
Twoflower shook his head wearily. "I wish
Rincewind was here,' he said. "He'd know what to
do.' 'Him?' sneered the demon. "Can't see a wizard

coming' here. They can't have anything to do with
the number eight.' The demon slapped a hand
across hiS mouth guiltily.
Twoflower looked up at the ceiling.
"What was that?' he asked. "Didn't you hear
something?'
"Me? Hear? No! not a thing,' the demon insisted
It jerked back into its box and slammed the door
Twoflower tapped on it. The door opened a crack.
"it sounded like a stone moving,' he explained
The door banged shut. Twoflower shrugged. "The place is probably falling to bits,' he said to

himself. He stood up.
'I say!' he Shouted. Is anyone there?' AIR, Air, air, replied the dark tunnels.

'Hullo?' he tried. lo, Lo, lo.

"I know there's someone here, I just heard you
playing dice! '
ICE, Ice, ice.
"Look, I had just-'
Twoflower stopped. The reason for this was the
bright point of light that had popped into existence
a few feet from his eyes. It grew rapidly, and after a
few seconds was the tiny bright shape of a man. At
this stage it began to make a noise, or, rather
Twoflower started to hear the noise it had been
making all along. It sounded like a sliver of a
Scream, caught in one long instant of time. The iridescent man was doll-sized now, a

tortured shape tumbling in slow motion while
hanging in mid-air. Twoflower wondered why he
had thought of the phrase "a sliver of a scream' . .
and began to wish he hadn't.
It was beginning to look like Rincewind. The
wizard's mouth was open, and his face was brilliantly 
lit by the light of - what? Strange suns,
Twoflower found himself thinking.'Suns men don't
usually see. He shivered.
Now the turning wizard was half man-size. At
that point the growth was faster, there was a
sudden crowded moment, a rush of air, and an
explosion of sound. Rincewind tumbled out of the
air, screaming. He hit the floor hard, choked, then
rolled over with his head cradled in hiS arms and
his body curled up tightly.
When the dust had settled Twoflower reached
out gingerly and tapped the wizard on the shoulder.
The human ball rolled up tighter.
"it's me,' explained Twoflower helpfully. The
wizard unrolled a fraction.
"What?' he said.
"Me."
In one movement Rincewind unrolled and bounced
up in front of the little man, his hands gripping his
shoulders desperately. His eyes were wild and
wide.
"Don't say it!' he hissed. "Don't say it and we

might get out! '
.Get out? How did you get in? Don't you 
know'Don't say it!' Twoflower backed away from thiS madman

'Don't say it!'
'Don't say what?'
"the number.'
"Number?' said Twoflower. "ey, Rincewind-'
'Yes, number! Between seven and nine. Four plus
four' "What, ei-'

Rincewind's hands clapped over the man's
mouth. "Say it and we're doomed. Just don't think
about, right. Trust me! '
"I don't understand,' wailed Twoflower. 
Rincewind relaxed slightly; which was to say that he
Still made a violin string look like a bowl of jelly.
"Come on,' he said. "Let's try and get out. And I'll
try and tell you.'

After the first Age of Magic the disposal of
grimoires began to become a severe problem on the
discworld. A spell is still a spell even when
imprisoned temporarily in parchment and ink. It
has potency. This is not a problem while the book's
owner still lives, but on hiS death the Spell book
becomes a source of uncontrolled power that
cannot eaSily be defused.
In short, spell books leak magic. Various 
solutions have been tried. Countries near the Rim
simply loaded down the books of dead mages with
leaden pentagrams and threw them over the Edge.
Near the Hub leSs satisfactory alternativeS were
available. Inserting the offending books in 
canisters of negatively polarized octiron and sinking
them in the fathomless depths of the sea was one
(burial in deep caves on land was earlier ruled out
after some districts complained of walking trees
and five-headed cats) but before long the magic
seeped out and eventually fishermen complained
of shoals of invisible fish or psychic clams.
A temporary solution was the construction, in
various centres of magical lore, of large rooms
made of denatured octiron, which is impervious to
most forms of magic. Here the more critical
grimoires could be stored until their potency had
attenuated.
That was how there came to be at Unseen
University the Octavo, greatest of all grimoires,
formerly owned by the Creator of the Universe. It
was this book that Rincewind had once opened for
a bet. He had only a second to stare at a page
before setting off various alarm spells, but that
was time enough for one spell to leap from it and
settle in his memory like a toad in a stone.

"Then what?' said Twoflower.
"oh, they' dragged me out. Thrashed me, of

course.'
"And no-one knows what the spell does?'
Rincewind shook his head.
"it'd vanished from the page,' he said. 'No-one
will know until I say it. Or until I die, of course.
Then it will sort of say itSelf. For all I know it stops
the universe, or ends Time, or anything.'
Twoflower patted him on the shoulder.
"No sense in brooding,' he Said cheerfully. "Let's

have another look for a way out.'
Rincewind shook his head. All the terror had
been spent now. He had broken through the terror
barrier, perhaps, and was in the dead calm state of
mind that lies on the other side. Anyway, he had
ceased to gibber.
"We're doomed,' he stated. 'We've been walking
around all night. I tell you, this place is a
spiderweb. It doesn't matter which way we go,
we're heading twoards the centre.'
'it was very kind of you to come looking for me,
said Twoflower. "How did you manage it
it was very impreSSive.'
'well,' began the wizard awkwardly. "I just
couldn't leave old Twoflower there" 
and"So what we've got to do now is find this Bel
Shamharoth person and explain things to him and
perhaps he'll let us out,' said Twoflower.
Rincewind ran a finger around his ear.
'it must be the funny echoes in here, ' he said. "I
thought I heard you use words like find and
explain.
'That's right.' Rincewind glared at him in the hellish purple

glow. 'Find Bel-Shamharoth?' he said.
"Yes. We don't have to get involved.'
"Find the Soul Render and not get involved? Just
give him a nod, I suppose, and ask the way to the
exit?
explain things to the Sender of Eignnnngh,' Rincewind bit off the end of the word just in time
and finished, "You're insane. Hey! Come back!'
He darted down the passage after Twoflower,
and after a few moments came to a halt with a
groan.
The violet light was intenSe here, giving 
everything new and unpleasant colours. This wasn't a
paSSage, it was a wide room with walls to a number
that Rincewind didn't dare to contemplate, and
7a pasSageS radiating from it.
Rincewind saw, a little way off, a low altar with
the Same number of sides as four times two. It
didn't occupy the centre of the room, however. The
centre was occupied by a huge stone slab with
twice as many sides as a square. It looked masSive.
In the Strange light it appeared to be slightly tilted
with one edge standing proud of the slabs around
it.
Twoflower waS standing on it.
"Hey. Rincewind! Look what's here!
The Luggage came ambling down one of the
other passages that radiated from the room.
"That's great,' said Rincewind. 'Fine. It can lead
us out of here. Now.'
Twoflower was already rummaging in the chest
"Yes,' he said. "After I've taken a few pictures
Just let me fit the attachment-'
'I said now-'
Rincewind stopped. Hrun the Barbarian was
standing in the passage mouth directly opposite
him, a great black sword held in one ham-sized
fist.
"You?' said Hrun uncertainly.
"Ahaha. Yes,' said Rincewind. "Hrun, isn't it?
Long time no see. What brings you here?'
Hrun pointed to the luggage.
"That,' he said. This much conversation seemed

to exhaust Hrun. Then he added, in a tone that
combined statement, claim, threat and ultimatum:
'Mine.'
"It belongs to Twoflower here,' said Rincewind.
"Here's a tip. Don't touch it.'
It dawned on him that this was precisely the
wrong thing to say, but Hrun had already pushed
Twoflower away and was reaching for the 
Luggage

. . . which sprouted legs, backed away, and raised
its lid threateningly. In the uncertain light 
Rincewind thought he could see rows of enormous teeth,
white as bleached beechwood.
"Hrun,' he said quickly, "there's something I

ought to tell you.'
Hrun turned a puzzled face to him.
"What?' he said.
"it's about numbers. Look, you know if you add
seven and one, or three and five, or take two from
ten. You get a number. While you're here don't say it
and we might all stand a chance of getting out
of here alive. Or merely just dead.'

"Who is he?' asked Twoflower. He was holding a

cage in his hands, dredged from the bottom-most
depths of the Luggage. It appeared to be full of
sulking pink lizardS.
'I am Hrun,' said Hrun proudly. Then he looked
at Rincewind.
"What?' he said.
"Just don't say it, okay?' said Rincewind.
He looked at the sword in Hrun's hand. It was
black, the sort of black that is leSs a colour than a
graveyard of colours, and there was a 
highlyornate runic inscription up the blade. More 
noticeable still was the faint octarine glow that 
surrounded it. The sword must have noticed him, too,
because it suddenly spoke in a voice like a claw
being scraped across glass.
"Strange,' it Said. "Why can't he say eight?'
EIGHT, hate, ate said the echoes. There was the
faintest of grinding noises, deep under the earth.
And the echoes, although they became softer,
refused to die away. They bounced from wall to
wall, crossing and recrossing, and the violet light
flickered in time with the sound.
"You did it!' sCreamed Rincewind. "i said you
shouldn't say eight!'
He Stopped, appalled at himself. But the word
was out now, and joined its colleagues in the
general BUBBuration.
Rincewind turned to run, but the air suddenly
Seemed to be thicker than treacle. A charge of
magic bigger than he had ever seen was building
up; when he moved, in painful slow motion, his
limbs left trails of golden sparks that traced their
shape in the air.
Behind him there was a rumble as the great
octagonal slab rose into the air, hung for a moment
on one edge, and crashed down on the floor.
Something thin and black snaked out of the pit
and wrapped itself around his ankle. He screamed
as he landed heavily on the vibrating flagstones.
The tentacle started to pull him across the floor.
Then Twoflower was in front of him, reaching
out for hiS hands. He grasped the little man's arms
desperately and they lay looking into each other's
faces. Rincewind slid on, even so.
"What's holding you?' he gasped.
"N-nothing!' said Twoflower. "What's happening?'
"i'm being dragged into this pit, what do you

think?'
"Oh Rincewind, I'm sorry-'
"You're sorry-'

There was a noise like a singing saw and the
pressure on Rincewind's legs abruptly ceased. He
turned his head and saw Hrun crouched by the pit,
his sword a blur as it hacked at the tentacles
racing out towards him.
Twoflower helped the wizard to his feet and they
crouched by the altar stone, watching the manic
figure as it battled the questing arms.
"it won't work,' said Rincewind. "The Sender can

materialise tentacles. What are you doing?'
Twoflower was feverishly attaching the cage of
subdued lizards to the picture box, which he had
mounted on a tripod.
"i've just got to get a picture of this,' he muttered.
"It's stupendous! Can you hear me, imp?'
The picture imp opened his tiny hatch, glanced
momentarily at the scene around the pit, and
vanished into the box. Rincewind jumped as
something touched his leg, and brought his heel
down on a questing tentacle.
cCome on,' he said. "Time to go zoom.' He
grabbed Twoflower's arm, but the tourist reSisted.
run away and leave Hrun with that thing?' he
Said. Rincewind looked blank. 'Why not?' he said. "it's
his job.' 
"But it'll kill him,'
"It could be worse,' said Rincewind.
"What?' 'it could be us,' Rincewind pointed out logically.

cCome on!'
Twoflower pointed. "Hey' he said. "It's got my
Luggage! '
Before Rincewind could restrain him Twoflower
ran around the edge of the pit to the box, which
was being dragged across the floor while its lid
snapped ineffectually at the tentacle that held it.
The little man began to kick at the tentacle in fury.
Another one snapped out of the melee around
Hrun and caught him around the waist. Hrun
himself was already an indistinct shape amid the
tightening coilS. Even as Rincewind stared in
horor the Hero's sword was wrenched from his
graSp and hurled against a wall.
"Your spell!' shouted Twoflower.
Rincewind' did not move. He was looking at the
Thing rising out of the pit. It was an enormous eye,
and it was staring directly at him. He whimpered
as a tentacle fastened itself around his waiSt.
The words of the spell rose unbidden in his
throat. He opened his mouth as in a dream,
shaping it around the first barbaric syllable.
Another tentacle shot out like a whip and coiled
around his throat, choking him. Staggering and
gaSping, Rincewind was dragged across the floor.
One flailing arm caught Twoflower's picture box
as it skittered past on its tripod. He snatched it up
instinctively, as hiS ancestors might have snatched
up a stone when faced with a marauding tiger. If
only he could get enough room to swing it against
. . . the Eye filled the whole universe in front of
him. Rincewind felt his will draining away like
water from a sieve.
In front of him the torpid lizards stirred in their
cage on the picture box. Irrationally, as a man
about to be beheaded notices every scratch and
stain on the executioner's block, Rincewind saw
that they had overlarge tails that were 
bluishwhite and, he realized, throbbing alarmingly.
As he was drawn towards the Eye the 
terrorstruck Rincewind raised the box protectively, and
at the same time heard the picture imp say
"They're about ripe now, can't hold them any
longer. Everyone smile, please.'
There was 
a flash of light so white and so 
brightit didn't seem like light at all.
Bel-Shamharoth screamed, a sound that started
in the far ultrasonic and finished somewhere in
Rincewind's bowels. The tentacles went 
momentarily as stiff as rods, hurling their various cargoes
around the room, before bunching up protectively
in front of the abused Eye. The whole mass
dropped into the pit and a moment later the big
slab was snatched up by several dozen tentacles
and slammed into place, leaving a number of
thrashing limbs trapped around the edge.
Hrun landed rolling, bounced off a wall and
came up on his feet. He found his sword and
started to chop methodically at the doomed arms
Rincewind lay on the floor, concentrating on not
going mad. A hollow wooden noise made him turn
his head.
The Luggage had landed on its curved lid. Now
it was rocking angrily and kicking its little legs in
the air.
Warily, Rincewind looked around for Twoflower
The little man was in a crumpled heap against the
wall, but at least he was groaning.
The wizard pulled himself across the floor
painfully, and whispered, "What the hell was that?
"Why were they so bright?' muttered Twoflower
"God, my head . . .'
"Too bright?' said Rincewind. He looked across

the floor to the cage on the picture box. The lizards
inside, now noticeably thinner, were watching him
with intereSt.
"The salamanders,' moaned Twoflower. "The
picture'll be over-exposed, I know it . . .'
"They're salamanders?' asked Rincewind 
incredulously.
"Of course. Standard attachment.'
Rincewind staggered across to' the box and
picked it up. He'd seen salamanders before, of
course, but they had been small specimens. They
had also been floating in a jar of pickle in the
curiobiological museum down in the cellars of
Unseen University, since live salamanders were
extinct around the Circle Sea.
He tried to remember the little he knew about
them. They were magical creatures. They also had
no mouths, since they subsisted entirely on the
nourishing quality of the octarine wavelength in
the discworld's sunlight, which they absorbed
through their skins. Of course, they also absorbed
the rest of the sunlight as well, storing it in a
Special sac until it was excreted in the normal way.
A deSert inhabited by discworld salamanders was
a veritable lighthouse at night.
Rincewind put them down and nodded grimly.
With all the octarine light in this magical place the
creatures had been gorging themselves, and then
nature had taken its course.
The picture box sidled away on its tripod.
Rincewind aimed a kick at it, and missed. He was

beginning to diSlike Sapient pearwood.
Something small stung his cheek. He brushed it
away irritably.
He looked around at a sudden grinding noise,
and a voice like a carving knife cutting through
silk said, "This is very undignified.'
"Shuddup,' Said Hrun. He was using Kring to
lever the top off the altar. He looked up at
Rincewind and grinned. Rincewind hoped that
rictus-strung grimace was a grin.
"Mighty magic,' commented the barbarian, pushing 
down heavily on the complaining blade with a
hand the size of a ham. "Now we share the treasure
eh?'

Rincewind grunted as something small and hard
struck his ear. There was a gust of wind, hardly
felt.
"How do you know there's treasure in there?' he

said.
Hrun heaved, and managed to hook his fingers
under the stone. "You find chokeapples under a
chokeapple tree,' he said. "You find treasure under
altars. Logic.'
He gritted his teeth. The stone swung up and
landed heavily on the floor.
This time something struck Rincewind's hand
heavily. He clawed at the air and looked at the
thing he had caught. It was a piece of Stone with
five-plus-three sides. He looked up at the ceiling
Should it be sagging like that? Hrun hummed a
little tune as he began to pull crumbling leather
from the desecrated altar.
The air crackled, fluoresced, hummed. Intangible
winds gripped the wizard's robe, flapping it out in
eddies of blue and green sparks. Around 
Rincewind's head mad, half-formed Spirits howled and
gibbered as they were sucked past.
He 'tried raising a hand. It was immediately
surrounded by a glowing 'octarine corona as the
rising magical wind roared past. The gale raced
through the room without stirring one iota of dust,
yet it was blowing Rincewind's eyelids inside out.
It screamed along the tunnels, its banshee-wail
bouncing madly from stone to stone.
Twoflower staggered up, bent double in the teeth
of the astral gale.
"What the hell is this?' he shouted.
Rincewind half-turned. Immediately the howling
wind caught him, nearly pitching him over.
Poltergeist eddies, spinning in the rushing air,
snatched at his feet.
Hrun's arm Shot out and caught him. A moment
later he and Twoflower had been dragged into the
lee of the ravaged altar, and lay panting on the
floor. Beside them the talking sword Kring sparkled,
its magical field boosted a hundredfold by the
storm.
"Hold on!' screamed Rincewind.
"The wind!' shouted Twoflower. "Where's it

coming from? Where's it blowing to?' He looked
into Rincewind's mask of sheer terror, which made
him redouble his own grip on the stones.
'We're doomed,' murmured Rincewind, while
overhead the roof cracked and shifted. 'Where do
ShadowS come from? That's where the wind is
blowing. '
What was in fact happening, as the wizard knew,
was that as the abused spirit of Bel-Shamharoth
sank through the deeper chthonic planes his
brooding spirit was being sucked out of the very
stones into the region which, according to the
discworld's moSt reliable prieSts, was both under
the ground and Somewhere Else. In consequence
his temple was being abandoned to the ravages of
Time, who for thousands of shamefaced years had
been reluctant to go near the place. Now the
suddenly released, accumulated weight of all those
pent-up seconds was bearing down heavily on the
unbraced stones.
Hrun glanced up at the widening cracks and
sighed. Then he put two fingers into his mouth and
whistled.
Strangely the real sound rang out loudly over the
pseudosound of the widening astral whirlpool that
was forming in the middle of the great octagonal
slab. It was followed by a hollow echo which
sounded, he fancied, strangely like the bouncing of
strange bones. Then came a noise with no hint of
strangeness. it was hollow hoofbeats.
Hrun's warhorse cantered through a creaking
archway and reared up by its master, its mane
streaming in the gale. The barbarian pulled
himself to his feet and slung his treasure bags into
a sack that hung from the saddle, then hauled
himSelf onto the beast's back. He reached down
and grabbed Twoflower by the scruff of his neck
dragging him acroSs the saddle tree. As the horse
turned around Rincewind took a desperate leap
and landed behind Hrun, who raised no objection.
The horse pounded surefooted along the tunnels
leaping sudden slides of rubble and adroitly side
stepping huge stones as they thundered down from
the straining roof. Rincewind, clinging on grimly
looked behind them.
No wonder the horse was moving so swiftly
Close behind, speeding through the flickering
violet light, were a large ominous-looking chest
and a picture box that skittered along dangerously
on its three legs. So great was the ability of sapient
pearwood to follow its master anywhere, the grave
goods of dead emperors had traditionally been
made of it...
They reached the outer air a moment before the
octagonal arch finally broke and smashed into the
flags.
The sun waS rising. Behind them a column of
dust rose as the temple collapsed in on itself, but
they did not look back. That was a shame, because
Twoflower might have been able to obtain pictures
unusual even by discworld standards.
There was movement in the smoking ruins. They
seemed to be growing a green carpet. Then an oak
tree spiralled up, branching out like an exploding
green rocket, and was in the middle of a venerable
copse even before the tips of its aged branches had
stopped quivering. A beech burst out like a fungus,
matured, rotted, and fell in a cloud of tinder dust
amid its struggling offspring. Already the temple
Was a half-buried heap of mossy stones.
But Time, having initially gone for the throat,
Was now setting out to complete the job. The
boiling interface between decaying magic and
ascendant entropy roared down the hill and 
overtook the galloping horse, whose riders, being
themselves creatures of Time, completely failed to
notice it. But it lashed into the enchanted forest
with the whip of centuries.
"impressive, isn't it?' observed a voice by 
Rincewind's knee as the horse cantered through the haze
of decaying timber and falling leaves.
The voice had an eerie metallic ring to it.
Rincewind looked down at Kring the sword. It had
a couple of rubies set in the pommel. He got the
impression they were watching him.
From the moorland rimwards of the wood they
watched the battle between the trees and Time,
which could only have one ending. It was a sort of
cabaret to the main business of the halt, which
Was the consumption of quite a lot of a bear which
had incautiously come within bowshot of Hrun.
Rincewind watched Hrun over the top of his slab
of greaSy meat. Hrun going about the business of
being a hero, he realised, was quite different to the
wine-bibbing, carousing Hrun who occasionally
came to Ankh-Morpork. He was cat-cautious, lithe
as a panther, and thoroughly at home.
And I've survived Bel-Shamharoth, Rincewind
reminded himself. Fantastic.
Twoflower was helping the hero sort through the
treasure stolen from the temple. It was mostly
silver set with unpleasant purple stones. 
Representations of spiders, octopi and the tree-dwelling
octarsier of the hubland wastes figured largely in
the heap.
Rincewind tried to shut his ears to the grating
voice beside him. It was no use.
" and then I belonged to the Pasha of Re'durat

and played a prominent part in the battle of the
Great Nef, which is where I received the slight nick
you may have noticed some two-thirds of the way
up my blade,' Kring was saying from its temporary
home in a tussock. "Some infidel was wearing an
octiron collar, most unsporting, and of course I
was a lot sharper in those days and my maSter
used to use me to cut silk handkerchiefs in mid-air
and - am I boring you?'
'Huh? Oh, no, no, not at all. It's all very
interesting,' said Rincewind, with his eyes still on
Hrun. How trustworthy would he be? Here they
were, out in the wilds, there were trolls about . . .
"I could see you were a cultured person,' Kring
went on. " seldom do I get to meet really
interesting people, for any length of time, anyway.
What I'd really like is a nice mantelpiece to hang
over, somewhere nice and quiet. I spent a couple of
hundred years on the bottom of a lake once.'
"That must have been fun,' said Rincewind

absently.
"Not really,' said Kring.
"No, I suppose not.'
"What I'd really like is to be a ploughshare. I

don't know what that is, but it sounds like an
existence with some point to it.
Twoflower hurried over to the wizard
"I had a great idea,' he burbled.
"Why don't we
'Yah,' said Rincewind, wearily.
get Hrun to accompany us to Quirm?'
Twoflower looked amazed. "How did you know?'
he said. "I just thought you'd think it,' said Rincewind.

Hrun ceased stuffing silverware into his 
saddlebagS and grinned encouragingly at them. Then his
eyeS Strayed back to the Luggage.
.if we had him with us, who'd attack us?' said
Twoflower.
Rincewind scratched his chin. "Hrun?' he 
suggested.
"But we saved his life in the Temple!'
.Well, if by attack you mean kill,'' said 
Rincewind, "i don't think he'd do that. He's not that sort.
He'd just rob us and tie us up and leave us for the
wolves, I expect.'
"Oh, come on.'
"Look, this is real life,' snapped Rincewind. 'I
mean, here you are, carrying around a box full of
gold, don't you think anyone in their right minds
would jump at the chance of pinching it?' I would
he added mentally - if I hadn't seen what the
Luggage does to prying fingers.
Then the answer hit him. He looked from Hrun
to the picture box. The picture imp was doing itS
laundry in a tiny tub, while the salamanders dozed
in their cage.
"I've got an idea,' he said. "i mean, what is it
heroeS really want?'
'Gold?' said Twoflower.
gNo. I mean really want.'
Twoflower frowned. "i don't quite understand
he Said. Rincewind picked up the picture box.
"Hrun,' he Said. cCome over here, will you?

The dayS passed peacefully. True, a small band of
bridge trolls tried to ambush them on one occasion,
and a party of brigands nearly caught them
unawares one night (but unwisely tried to 
investigate the Luggage before slaughtering the 
sleepers). Hrun demanded, and got, double pay for both
occasions.
"if any harm comes to us,' said Rincewind, "then

there will be no-one to operate the magic box. No
more pictures of Hrun, you understand?'
Hrun nodded, his eyes fixed on the latest picture.
It showed Hrun striking a heroic pose, with one
foot on a heap of slain trolls.
"Me and you and little friend Two Flowers, we all

get on hokay,' he said. "Also tomorrow, may we get
a better profile, hokay?'
He carefully wrapped the picture in trollskin and
stowed it in his saddlebag, along with the others.
'it seems to be working,' said Twoflower 
admiringly, as Hrun rode ahead to scout the road.
"Sure,' said Rincewind. "What heroes like best is
themselves . '
"You're getting quite good at using the picture

box, you know that?'
"Yar'

"So you might like to have this.' Twoflower held

out a picture.
"What is it?' asked Rincewind.
"oh, just the picture you took in.the temple.'
Rincewind looked in horror. There, bordered by a
few glimpses of tentacle, was a huge, whorled,
calloused, potion-stained and unfocused thumb.
'That's the story of my life,' he said wearily.

"You win,' said Fate, pushing the heap of souls
across the gaming table. The assembled gods
relaxed. "There will be other games,' he added.
The Lady smiled into two eyes that were like
holes in the universe.
and then there was nothing but the ruin of the
forests 'and a cloud of dust on the horizon, which
drifted away on the breeze. And, sitting on a pitted
and mosS-grown milestone, a black and raggedy
figure. His was the air of one who is unjustly put
upon, who is dreaded and feared, yet who is the
only friend of the poor and the best doctor for the
!mortally wounded.
Death, although of course completely eyeless,
watched Rincewind disappearing with what would,
had His face possessed any mobility at all, have
been a frown. Death, although exceptionally busy
at all times, decided that He now had a hobby
There was something about the wizard that irked
Him beyond measure. He didn't keep appointments
for one thing.
I'LL GET YOU YET, CULLY. said Death, in the voice
like the slamming of leaden coffin lids.
THE LURE OF THE WYRM

It was called the Wyrmberg and it rose almost one
half of a mile above the green valley; a mountain
huge, grey and upside down.
At its base it was a mere score of yards across.
Then it rose through clinging cloud, curving 
gracefully outward like an upturned trumpet until it was
truncated by a plateau fully a quarter of a mile
across. There was a tiny forest up there, its
greenery cascading over the lip. There were 
buildings. There was even a small river, tumbling over
the edge in a waterfall so wind-whipped that it
reached the ground as rain.
There were also a number of cave mouths, a few
yards below the plateau. They had a 
crudely-carved, regular look about them, so that on this
crisp autumn morning the Wyrmberg hung over
the clouds like a giant's dovecote.
This would mean that the "doves' had a 
wingspan slightly in excess of forty yards.

'I knew it,' said Rincewind. "We're in a strong
magical field.'
Twoflower and Hrun looked around the little
hollow where they had made their noonday halt.
Then they looked at each other.
The horses were quietly cropping the rich grass
by the stream. Yellow butterflies skittered among
the bushes. There was a smell of thyme and a
buzzing of bees. The wild pigs on the spit sizzled
gently.
Hrun shrugged and went back to oiling his
biceps. They gleamed.
"Looks alright to me,' he said.
"Try tossing a coin,' said Rincewind.
."what? Go on. Toss a coin.'

"Hokay,' Said Hrun. "if it gives you any pleasure.'
He reached into hiS pouch and withdrew a handful
of loose change plundered from a dozen realms.
With Some care he selected a Zchloty leaden
quarter-iotum and balanced it on a purple 
thumb
"You call,' he said. "Heads or-' he inspected the
obverse with an air of intense concentration, "some
sort of a fish with legs.'
"When it's in the air,' said Rincewind. Hrun
grinned and flicked his thumb.
The iotum rose, spinning.
"Edge,' Said Rincewind, without looking at it.

Magic never dies. It merely fades away.
Nowhere was this more evident on the wide blue
expanse of the discworld than in those areas that
had been the scene of the great battles of the Mage
Wars, which had happened very shortly after
Creation. In those days magic in its raw state had
been widely available, and had been eagerly
utilized by the First Men in their war against the
Gods.
The precise origins of the Mage Wars have been
lost in the fogS of Time, but disc philosophers agree
that the First Men, shortly after their creation,
understandably lost their temper. And great and
pyrotechnic were the battles that followed - the
sun wheeled across the sky, the seas boiled, weird
Storms ravaged the land, small white pigeons
mysteriously appeared in people's clothing, and
the very Stability of the disc (carried as it was
through space on the backs of four giant 
turtle-riding elephants) was threatened. This resulted in
Stern action by the Old High Ones, to whom even
the Gods themselves are answerable. The Gods
were banished to high places, men were re-created
a good deal smaller, and much of the old wild
magic was sucked out of the earth.
That did not solve the problem of those places on
the disc which, during the wars, had suffered a
direct hit by a spell. The magic faded away 
slowly, over the millenia, releasing as it decayed
myriads of sub-astral particles that severely 
distorted the reality around it . . .

Rincewind, Twoflower and Hrun stared at the
coin.
"Edge it is,' said Hrun. 'Well, you're a wizard. So

what?'
"i don't do - that sort of spell.
"You mean you can't.'
Rincewind ignored this, because it was true. "Try
it again,' he suggested.
Hrun pulled out a fistful of coins.
The first two landed in the usual manner. So did
the fourth. The third landed on its edge and
balanced there. The fifth turned into a small yellow
caterpillar and crawled away. The sixth, upon
reaching its zenith, vanished with a sharp "spang!'
A moment later there was a small thunder clap.
"Hey, that one was silver,' exclaimed Hrun,

rising to his feet and staring upwards. "Bring it

"i don't know where it's gone, said Rincewind
wearily. "it's probably still accelerating. The ones I
tried this morning didn't come down, anyway.'
Hrun was still staring into the sky.
"What?' said Twoflower.
Rincewind sighed. He had been dreading this.
'We've strayed into a zone with a high magical
index,' he said. "Don't ask me how. Once upon a
time a really powerful magic field must have been
generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'
"precisely,' said a passing bush
hruns head jerked down.
"You mean this is one of those places?' he asked.
'Let's get out of here!'
"Right,' agreed Rincewind. "if we retrace our
steps we might make it. We can stop every mile or
so and toss a coin.'
He stood up urgently and started stuffing things
into his saddlebags.
"What?' Said Twoflower.
Rincewind stopped. "look,' he snapped. "Just
don't argue' . Come on.'
"It looks alright,' said Twoflower. "Just a bit
underpopulated that's all . . .'
'Yes,' said Rincewind. "odd, isn't it? Come on!'
There was a noise high above them, like a strip
of leather being slapped on a wet rock. Something
glaSSy and indiStinct passed over Rincewind's
head, throwing up a cloud of ashes from the fire,
and the pig carcass took off from the spit and
rocketed into the sky.
It banked to avoid a clump of trees, righted itself,
roared around in a tight circle, and headed 
hubwards leaving a trail of hot pork-fat droplets.

'What are they doing now?' asked the old man.
The young woman glanced at the scrying glass.
"Heading rimwards at speed,' she reported. "By
the way - they've still got that box on legs.' The old man chuckled, an oddly disturbing

sound in the dark and dusty crypt. 'Sapient
pearwood,' he said. "Remarkable. Yes, I think we
will have that. Please see to it, my dear - before
they go beyond your power, perhaps?'
"Silence! Or-'
"or what, Liesa?' said the old man (in this dim
light there was something odd about the way he
was Slumped in the stone chair). "You killed me
once already, remember?'
She snorted and stood up, tossing back her hair
scornfully. It was red, flecked with gold. Erect,
Liessa Wyrmbidder was entirely a magnificent
sight. She was also almost naked, except for a
couple of mere scraps of the lightest chain mail
and riding boots of iridescent dragonhide. In one
boot was thrust a riding crop, unusual in that it
was as long as a spear and tipped with tiny steel
barbs.
"My power will be quite sufficient,' she said

The indistinct figure appeared to nod, or at least
to wobble.""so you keep assuring me,' he said.
Liessa snorted, and strode out of the hall.
Her father did not bother to watch her go. One
reason for this was, of course, that since he had
been dead for three months his eyes were in any
case not in the best of condition. The other was
that as a wizard - even a dead wizard of the
fifteenth grade, his optic nerves had long since
become attuned to seeing into levels and 
dimensions far removed from common reality, and were
therefore somewhat inefficient at observing the
merely mundane. (During his life they had appeared
to others to be eight-faceted and eerily insectile.)
Besides, since he was now suspended in the
narrow space between the living world and the
dark shadow-world of Death he could survey the
whole of Causality itself. That was why, apart
from a mild hope that this time his wretched
daughter would get herself killed, he did not devote
his considerable powers to learning more about the
three travellers galloping desperately out of his
realm

Several hundred yards away, Liessa was in a
strange humour as she strode down the worn steps
that led into the hollow heart of the Wyrmberg
followed by half a dozen Riders. Would this be the
opportunity? Perhaps here was the key to break the
deadlock, the key to the throne of the Wyrmberg. It
was rightfully hers, of course; but tradition said
that only a man could rule the Wyrmberg. That
irked Liesa, and when she was angry the Power
flowed stronger and the dragons were especially
big and ugly.
If she had a man, things would be different
Someone who, for preference, was a big strapping
lad but short on brains. Someone who would do
what he was told.
The biggest of the three now fleeing the 
dragonlands might do. And if it turned out that he
wouldn't, then dragons were always hungry and
needed to be fed regularly. She could see to it that
they got ugly.
Uglier than usual, anyway

, The stairway passed through a stone arch and
ended in a narrow ledge near the roof of the great
cavern where the Wyrms roosted.
Sunbeams from the myriad entrances around
the walls cries-crossed the dusty gloom like amber
rods in which a million golden insects had been
preserved. Below, they revealed nothing but a thin
haze. Above . . .
The walking rings started so close to Liessa's
head that she could reach up and touch one. They
stretched away in their thousands across the
upturned acres of the cavern roof. It had taken a

Score of masons a score of years to hammer the
pitonS for all those, hanging from their work as
they progressed. Yet they were as nothing compared
to the eighty-eight major rings that clustered near
the apex of the dome. A further fifty had been lost
in the old days, as they were swung into place by
teams of sweating slaves (and there had been
SlaveS aplenty, in the first days of the Power) and
the great rings had gone crashing into the depths,
dragging their unfortunate manipulators with
them.
But eighty-eight had been installed, huge as
rainbows, rusty as blood. From them .

The dragons sense Liessa's presence. Air swishes
around the cavern as eighty-eight pairs of wings
unfold like a complicated puzzle. Great heads with
green, multi-faceted eyes peer down at her.
The beasts were  still faintly transparent. While the
men around her take their hookboots from the rack.
Liessa bends her mind to the task of full 
visualisation; about her in the musty air the dragons become
fully visible, bronze scales dully reflecting the
sunbeam shafts. Her mind throbs, but now that the
Power is flowing fully she can, with barely a wnuer
of concentration, think of other things.
Now she too buckles on the hookboots and turns
a graceful cartwheel to bring their hooks, with a
faint clung, against a couple of the walking rings
in the ceiling.
Only now it is the floor. The world has changed.
Now she is standing on the edge of a deep bowl or
crater, floored with the little rings across which the
dragonriders are already strolling with a pendulum
grit. In the centre of the bowl their huge mounts
wait among the herd. Far above are the distant
rocks of the cavern floor, discoloured by centuries
of dragon droppings.
Moving with the easy gliding movement that is
second nature Liessa sets off towards her own
dragon, Lnolith, who turns his great horsey head
towards' her. His jowls are greasy with pork fat.
It was very enjoyable, he says in her mind.
'I thought I said there were to be no 
unaccompanied flights?' she snaps.
I was hungry' , Liessa.
'Curb your hunger. Soon there will be horses to
eat. '
The reins stick in our teeth. Are there any
warriors? We like warriors.
Liessa swings down the mounting ladder and
lands with her legs locked around Lnolith's
leathery neck.
"The warrior is mine. There are a couple of others

you can have. One appears to be a wizard of sorts,
she adds by way of encouragement.
Oh, you know how it is with wizards. Half an
hour afterwards you could do with another one, the
dragon grumbles.
He spreads his wings and drops.

"They're gaining.' screamed Rincewind. He bent
even lower over his horse's neck and groaned.
Twoflower was trying to keep up while at the same
time craning round to look at the flying beasts.
"You don't underStand!' screamed the tourist,

above the terrible noise of the wingbeats. "All my
life I've wanted to see dragons!'
"From the inSide?' shouted Rincewind. "Shut up
and ride!' He whipped at his horse with the reins
and stared at the wood ahead, trying to drag it
closer by Sheer willpower. Under those trees they'd
be safe. Under thoSe trees no' dragons could fly . . .
He heard the clap of wingS before shadows
folded around him. Instinctively he rolled in the
saddle and felt the white-hot stab of pain as
something Sharp scored a line across his shoulderS.
Behind him Hrun screamed, but it sounded more
like a bellow of rage than a cry of pain. The
barbarian had vaulted down into the heather and
had drawn the black sword, Kring. He flourished it
as one of the dragons curved in for another low
%
"No bloody lizard does that to me! ' he roared
Rincewind leaned over and grabbed Twoflower's
reins.
"Come on,' he hissed.
"But, the dragons-' said Twoflower, entranced.
'Blast the-' began the wizard, and froze.
Another dragon had peeled off from the circling
dots overhead and was gliding towards them.
Rincewind let go of Twoflower's horse, swore
bitterly, and spurred his own mount towards the
trees, alone. He didn't look back at the sudden
commotion behind him and, when a shadow
passed over him, merely gibbered weakly and tried
to burrow into the horse's mane.
Then, instead of the searing, piercing pain he
had expected, there was a series of stinging blows
as the terrified animal passed under the eaves of
the wood. The wizard tried to hang on but another
low branch, stouter than the others, knocked him
out of the saddle. The last thing he heard before
the flashing blue lights of unconsciousness closed
in was a high reptilian scream of frustration, and
the thrashing of talons in the treetops.

When he awoke a dragon was watching him; at
least, it was staring in his general direction.
Rincewind groaned and tried to dig his way into
the moss with his shoulderblades, then gasped as
the pain hit him.
Through the mists of agony and fear he looked
back at the dragon.
The creature was hanging from a branch of a
large dead oak tree, several hundred feet away. Its
bronze-gold wings were tightly wrapped around its
body but the long equine head turned this way and
that at the end of a remarkably prehensile neck. It
was scanning the forest.
It was also semi-tranSparent. Although the sun
glinted off its scales, Rincewind could clearly make out the outlines of the branches behind it.
On one' of them a man was sitting, dwarfed by
the hanging reptile. He appeared to be naked
except for a pair of high boots, a tiny leather 
holdall in the region of his groin, and a high-crested
helmet. He was swinging a short sword back and
forth idly, and stared out across the tree tops with
the air of one carrying out a tedious and 
unglamorous aSSignment.
A beetle began to crawl laboriously up 
Rincewind's leg.
The wizard wondered how much damage a 
half solid dragon could do. Would it only half-kill him?
He decided not to stay and find out.
Moving on heels, fingertips and shoulder muscles,
Rincewind wriggled sideways until foliage masked
the oak and its occupants. Then he scrambled to
his feet and hared off between the trees.
He had no destination in mind, no provisions,
and no horse'. But while he still had legs he could
run. Ferns and brambles whipped at him, but he
didn't feel them at all.
When ,he had put about a mile between him and
the dragon he Stopped and collapsed against a
tree, which then spoke to him.
"PSst,' it said.
Dreading what he might see, Rincewind let his
gaze slide upwards. It tried to fasten on innocuous
bits of bark and leaf, but the scourge of curiosity
forced it to leave them behind. Finally it fixed on a
black sword thrust straight through the branch
above Rincewind's head.
"Don't just Stand there,' said the sword (in a
voice like the sound of a finger dragged around the
rim of a large empty wine glass). "Pull me out.'
"What?' said Rincewind, his chest still heaving.
"Pull me out,' repeated Kring. "It's either that or
I'll be spending the next million years in a coal
measure. Did I ever tell you about the time I was
thrown into a lake up in th-'
"What happened to the others?' said Rincewind,
still clutching the tree desperately.
"Oh, the dragons got them. And the horses. And

that box thing. Me too, except that Hrun dropped
me. What a stroke of luck for you.'
"Well-' began Rincewind. Kring ignored him.
"I expect you'll be in a hurry to rescue them, it

added.
"Yes, well-'
"So if you'll just pull me out we can be off.'
Rincewind squinted up at the sword. A rescue
attempt had hitherto been so far at the back of his
mind that, if some advanced speculations on the
nature and shape of the many-dimensioned 
multiplexity of the universe were correct, it was right at
the front; but a magic sword was a valuable
item . . .
And it would be a long trek back home, wherever
that was . . .
He scrambled up the tree and inched along the
branch. Kring was buried very firmly in the wood.
He gripped the pommel and heaved until lights
flashed in front of his eyes.
"Try again,' said the sword encouragingly.

Rincewind groaned and gritted his teeth.
'Could be worse,' said Kring. "This could have
been an anvil.'
"Yaargh,' hissed the wizard, fearing for the

future of his groin.
'I have had a multidimensional existence,' said
the sword.
"Ungh?'
"I have had many names, you know.'
"Amazing,' said Rincewind. He swayed backwards 
as the blade slid free. It felt strangely light.
back on the ground again he decided to break
the news. "I really don't think rescue is a good idea,' he

said. "I think we'd better head back to a city, you
know. To raise a search party.'
"The dragons headed hubwards,' said Kring.
"However, I Suggest we start with the one in the
trees over there.'
.Sorry, but-'
"You can't leave them to their fate!'
Rincewind looked surprised. "I can't?' he said.
"No. You can't. Look, I'll be frank. 'i've worked
with better material than you, but it's either that or
have you ever spent a million years in a coal
meaSUre?'

'Look,I-'"So if you don't stop arguing I'll chop your head

off. 
Rincewind saw his own arm snap up until the
shimmering blade was humming a mere inch from
his throat. He tried to force his fingers to let go.
They wouldn't.
"I don't know how to be a hero!' he shouted
"I propose to teach you.'

Bronze Psepha rumbled deep in his throat.
Kfedra the dragonrider leaned forward andsquinted across the clearing. 
"I see him,' he Said. He swung himself down
easily from branch to branch and landed lightly
on the tusSocky grass, drawing his sword.
He took a long look at the approaching man,
who waS obviously not keen on leaving the shelter
of the trees. He was armed, but the dragonrider
observed with some interest the strange way in
which the man held the sword in front of him at
arm's length, as though embarrassed to be seen in
itS company.
Kfedra hefted his own sword and grinned expansively as the wizard shuffled towards him. Then he
leapt.
Later, he remembered only two things about the
fight. He recalled the uncanny way in which the
wizard's sword curved up and caught his own
blade with a shock that jerked it out of his grip.
The other thing - and it was this, he averred, that
led to his downfall - was that the wizard was
covering his eyes with one hand.

Ksedra jumped back to avoid another thrust and fell 'full length on the turf. With a snarl Psepha
unfolded his great wings and launched himself
from his tree.
A moment later the wizard was standing over
him, shouting, "Tell it that if it singes me I'll let the
sword go. I will. I'll let it go! So tell it! ' the tip of the
black sword was hovering over Kisdra's throat,
What was odd was that the wizard was obviously
struggling with it, and it appeared to be singing to
itself.
"Psepha!' K'sdra shouted.
The dragon roared in defiance, but pulled out of
the dive that would have removed Rincewind's
head, and flapped ponderously back to the tree.
"Talk!' screamed Rincewind.

Ksdra squinted at him up the length of the sword.
"What would you like me to say?' he asked.

'What?'
"I said what would you like me to say?'
"Where are my friends? The barbarian and the
little man is what I mean.'
"I expect they have been taken back to the
Wyrmberg.'
Rincewind tugged desperately against the surge
of the sword, trying to shut his mind to Kring's
%bloodthirsty humming.
r~k st'8 e Wy

home. "And I suppose you were waiting to take me
there, eh? Ktsdra
gulped involuntarily as the tip of the
sword pued a bead of blood from his adam's
apple. "Don't want people to know you've got dragons
here, eh? snarled Rincewind. The dragonrider
forgot himself enough to nod, and came within a
quarter-inch of cutting his own throat.
Rincewind looked around desperately, and realized
that this was Something he was really going to
have to go through with.
'Right then,' he said as diffidently as he could manage.

"you'd better take me to this Wyrmberg of
yours, hadn't you?'
'I was supposed to take you in dead,' muttered
Ksdra sullenly.
'Rincewind looked down at him and grinned
slowly. It was a wide, manic and utterly 
humourless rictus that was the sort of grin that is normally
accompanied by small riverside birds wandering
in and out picking scraps out of the teeth.
"Alive will do,' said Rincewind. "if we're talking
about anyone being dead, remember whose sword
iS in which hand.'
"If you kill me nothing will prevent Psepha
killing you Shouted the prone dragonrider.
"So what I'll do is, I'll chop bits off,' agreed the
wizard. He tried the effect of the grin again.
"Oh, all right,' said K'sdra sulkily. "Do you think I've got an imagination?'
He wrigled out from under the sword and
waved at the dragon, which took wing again and
glided in towards them. Rincewind swallowed.
'You mean we've got to go on that?' he said.

Wyrmberg?' he said.
mberg. There is only one. It is 
DragonK! sdra looked at him scornfully, the point of Kring
still aimed at his neck.
"How else would anyone get to the Wyrmberg?'

'I don't know,' said Rincewind. "How else?'
"I mean, there is no other way. It's flying or

nothing.'
Rincewind looked again at the dragon before
him. He could quite clearly see through it to the
crushed grass on which it lay but, when he
gingerly touched a scale that was a mere golden
sheen on thin air, it felt solid enough. Either
dragons should exist' completely or fail to exist at
all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse
than the extremes.
"i didn't know dragons could be seen through,' he

said.

He swung himself astride the dragon awkwardly, K!sdra shrugged. "Didn't you?' he said.
because Rincewind was hanging on to his belt.
Once uncomfortably aboard the wizard moved his
white-knuckle grip to a convenient piece of harness
and prodded k'sdra lightly with the sword.
"Have you ever flown before?' said the 
dragonrider, without looking round.
"Not as such, no.'
"Would you like something to suck?'
Rincewind gazed at the back of the man's head,
then dropped to the bag of red and yellow sweets
that was being proffered.
"Is it necessary?' he asked.
"it is traditional,' said K!sdra. "Please yourself.'
The dragon stood up, lumbered heavily across
the meadow, and fluttered into the air.
Rincewind occasionally had nightmares about
teetering on some intangible but enormously high
place, and seeing a blue-distanced, cloud-punctuated
landscape reeling away below him (this usually
woke him up with his ankles sweating; he would
have been even more worried had he known that
the nightmare was not, as he thought, just the
. usual discworld vertigo. It was a backwards
memory of an event in his future so terrifying that
it had generated harmonics of fear all the way
along his lifeline).
This was not that event, but it was good practise
for it. Psepha clawed its way into the air with a series

of vertebrae-shattering bounds. At the top of its
last leap the wide wings unfolded with a snap and
spread out with a thump which shook the trees.
Then the ground was gone, dropping away in a
Series of gentle jerks. Psepha was suddenly rising
gracefully, the afternoon sunlight gleaming off
wings that were still no more than a golden film.
Rincewind made the mistake of glancing 
downwards, and found himself looking through the
dragon to the treetops below. Far below. His
Stomach Shrank at the sight.
Closing his eyes wasn't much better, because it
gave his imagination full rein. He compromised by
gazing fixedly into the middle distance, where
moorland and forest drifted by and could be
contemplated almost casually.
Wind Snatched at him. K!sdra half turned and
shouted into his ear.
"Behold the Wyrmberg!'
Rincewind turned his head slowly, taking care to
keep Kring resting lightly on the dragon's back.
His streaming eyes saw the impossibly inverted
mountain rearing out of the deep forested valley
like a trumpet in a tub of nose. Even at this
distance he could make out the faint octarine glow
in the air that must be indicating a stable magic
aura of at least - he gasped - several milliPrime?
At least
'Oh no,' he said
Even looking at the ground was better than that.
He averted his eyes quickly, and realized that he
could now no longer see the ground through the
dragon. As they glided around in a wide circle
towards the Wyrmberg it was definitely taking on
a more solid form, as if the creature's body was
filling with a gold mist. By the time the Wyrmberg
was in front of them, swinging wildly across the
sky, the dragon was as real as a rock.
Rincewind thought he could see a faint streak in
the air, as if something from the mountain had
reached out and touched the beast. He got the
strange feeling that the dragon was being made
more genuine.
Ahead of it the Wyrmberg turned from a distant
toy to several billion tons of rock poised between
heaven and earth. He could see small fields, woods
and a lake up there, and from the lake a river
spilled out and over the edge . . .
He made the mistake of following the thread of
foaming water with his eyes, and jerked himself
back just in time.
The flared plateau of the upturned mountain
drifted towards them. The dragon didn't even slow.
As the mountain loomed over Rincewind like the
biggest fly-swatter in the universe he saw a cave
mouth. Psepha skimmed towards it, shoulder
muscles pumping.
The wizard screamed as the dark spread and
enfolded him. There was a brief vision of rock
flashing past, blurred by speed. Then the dragon
was in the open again.
It was inside a cave, but bigger than any cave
had a right to be. The dragon, gliding across its
vast emptiness, was a mere gilded fly in a 
banqueting hall.

There were other dragons - gold, silver, black,
white - flapping across the sun-shafted air on
erands of their own or perched on outcrops of
rock. high in the domed roof of the cavern scores of
others hung from huge rings, their wings wrapped
bat-like around their bodies. There were men up
there, too. Rincewind swallowed hard when he saw
them, because they were walking on that broad
expanse of ceiling like flies.
Then he made out the thousands of tiny rings
that studded the ceiling. A number of inverted men
were watching Psepha's flight with interest. 
rincewind swallowed again. For the life of him he
couldn't think of what to do next.
"Well?' he asked, in a whisper. "Any suggestions?
"Obviously you attack,' said Kring scornfully.

'Why didn't I think of that?' said Rincewind
.Could it be because they all have crossbows?'
'You're a defeatist.'
"Defeatist? That's because I'm going to be
defeated! '
"You're your own worst enemy, Rincewind,' said
the sword.
Rincewind looked up at grinning men.
"Bet?' he said wearily.
Before Kring could reply Psepha reared in 
midair and alighted on one of the large rings, which
rocked alarmingly.
"Would you like to die now, or surrender first?'
asked Kfsdra calmly.
Men were converging on the ring from "all
directions, walking with a swaying motion as their
hooked boots engaged the ceiling rings.
There were more boots on a rack that hung in a
Small platform built on the side of the perch-ring.
Before Rincewind could stop him the dragonrider
had leapt from the creature's back to land on the
platform, where he stood grinning at the wizard's
diScomfiture.
There waS a small expressive sound made by a
number of crossbows being cocked. Rincewind
looked up at a number of impassive, upside down
faces. The dragonfolk's taste in clothing didn't run
to anything much more imaginative than a leather
harness, studded with bronze ornaments. Knives
and sword sheaths were worn inverted. Those who
were not wearing helmets let their hair flow freely,
so that it moved like seaweed in the ventilation
breeze near the roof. There were several women
among them. The inversion did strange things to
their anatomy. Rincewind stared.
"Surrender,' said K!sdra again.
Rincewind opened' his mouth to do so. Kring
hummed a warning, and agonising waves of pain
shot up his arm. "Never,' he squeaked. The pain
stopped.
"Of course he won't!' boomed an expansive voice
behind him. "He's a hero, isn't he?'
Rincewind turned and looked into a pair of hairy
nostrils. They belonged to a heavily built young'
man, hanging nonchalantly from the ceiling by
his boots.
"What is your name, hero?' said the man. 'So that
we know who you were.'
Agony shot up Rincewind's arm. "I-I'm 
Rincewind of Ankh,' he managed to gasp.
"And I am Liofrt Dragonlord,' said the hanging
man, pronouncing the word with the harsh click in
the back of the throat that Rincewind could only
think of as a kind of integral punctuation. "You
have come to challenge me in mortal combat.'
"Well, no, I didn't-'
"You are mistaken. Kfsdra, help our hero into a

pair of hookboots. I am sure he is anxious to get
started.'
"No, look, I just came here to find my friends. I'm
sure there's no-' Rincewind began, as the 
dragonrider guided him firmly onto the platform, pushed
him onto a seat, and proceeded to strap hookboots
to his feet.

"Hurry up, K!sdra. We mustn't keep our hero
from his destiny,' said Lie!tt.
'Look, I expect my friends are happy enough
here, so if you could just, you know, set me down
somewhere
"You will see your friends soon enough,' said the
dragonlord airily. "If you are religious, I mean.
None who enter the Wyrmberg ever leave again.
Except metaphorically, of course. Show him how
to reach the rings, Kfsdra.'
"Look what you've got me into!' Rincewind
hissed.
Kring vibrated in his hand. "Remember that I
am a magic sword,' it hummed.
"How can I forget?'

'Climb the ladder and grab a ring,' said the
dragonrider, "then bring your feet up until the
hooks catch.' He helped the protesting wizard
climb until he was hanging upside down, robe
tucked into his britches, Kring dangling from one
hand. At this angle the dragonfolk looked 
reasonably bearable but the dragons themselves, hanging
from their perches, loomed over the scene like
immense gargoyles. Their eyes glowed with interest.

'Attention, please,' said Lie!tt. A dragonrider
handed him a long shape, wrapped in red silk.
'We fight to the death,' he said. 'Yours
"And I Suppose I earn my freedom if I win?' said
Rincewind, without much hope.
Lie!tt indicated the assembled dragonriders with
a tilt of hiS head.
%'Don't be naive, he said.
Rincewind took a deep breath
"I suppose I should warn you,' he said, his
voice hardly
quavering at all, "that this is a magic sword.'
Lie!tt let the red silk wrapping drop away into
the gloom and flourished a jet-black blade. Runes rudder night of frosty Stars, it swung two-handed
b' 1 h
glowed on its surface.
"What a coincidence,' he said, and lunged.
Rincewind went rigid with fright, but his arm
swung out as Kring shot forward. The swords met
in an explosion of octarine light.
Lie!tt swung himself backwards, his eyes narrowing
. Crring leapt past his guard and, although the
dragonlord's sword jerked up to deflect most of the
force, the result was a thin red line across its
master's torso.
With a growl he launched himself at the wizard
boots clattering as he slid from ring to ring. The
swords met again in another violent discharge of
magic and, at the same time, Lio'rt brought his
other hand down against Rincewind's head, jarring
him so hard that one foot jerked out of its ring and
flailed desperately.

Rincewind knew himself to be almost certainly the
worst wizard on the discworld since he knew but
one spell; yet for all that he was still a wizard, and
thus by the inexorable laws of magic this meant
that upon his demise it would be Death himself
who appeared to claim him (instead of sending one
of his numerous servants, as is usually the case).
Thus it was that, as a grinning Lie!tt swung
back and brought his sword around in a lazy arc,
time ran into treacle.
To Rincewind's eyes the world was suddenly lit
by a flickering octarine light, tinged with violet as
photons impacted on the sudden magical aura.
Inside it the dragonlord was a ghastly-hued statue,
his sword moving at a snail's pace in the glow.
Beside Liofrt was another figure, visible only to
those who can see into the extra four dimensions of
magic. It was tall and dark and thin and, against a
%mud I
a Boy h6 of proverbial sharpness . . .
Rincewind ducked. The blade hissed coldly through the air beSide his head and entered the
rock of the cavern roof without slowing. Death
screamed a curse in his cold crypt voice. The scene
vanished. What passed for reality on the discworld
reasserted itself with a rush of sound. Lio'rt gasped
at the sudden turn of speed with which the wizard
had dodged his killing stroke and, with that
desperation only available to the really terrified,
Rincewind uncoiled like a snake and launched
himself across the space between them. He locked
both hands around the dragonlord's sword arm,
and wrenched.
It was at that moment that Rincewind's one
remaining ring, already overburdened, slid out of
the rock with a nasty little metal sound.
He plunged down, swung wildly, and ended up
dangling over a bone-splintering death with his
hands gripping the dragonlord's arm so tightly
that the man screamed.
Lio'rt looked up at his feet. Small flakes of rock
were dropping out of the roof around the ring
pitons.
"Let go, damn you.' he screamed. "Or we'll both

die! '
Rincewind said nothing. He was concentrating
on maintaining his grip and keeping his mind
closed to the pressing images of his fate on the
rockS below.
"Shoot him!' bellowed Liotrt.
Out of the corner of his eye Rincewind saw
several crossbows levelled at him. Lie!tt chose that
moment to flail down with his free hand, and a
fistful of rings stabbed into the wizard's fingers.
He let go.
Twoflower grabbed the bars and pulled himself up.
"See anything?' said Hrun, from the region of his

feet.
"Just clouds.'
Hrun lifted him down again, and sat on the edge
of one of the wooden beds that were the only
furnishings in the cell. "Bloody hell,' he said.
"Don't despair,' said Twoflower.
"I'm not despairing.'
"I expect it's all some sort of misunderstanding. I

expect they'll release us soon. They seem very
civilised . '
Hrun stared at him from under bushy eyebrows.
He started to say something, then appeared to
think better of it. He sighed instead.
"And when we get back we can say we've seen
dragons,' Twoflower continued. 'What about that,
eh?'
"Dragons don't exist,' said Hrun flatly. 'Codice of

Chimeria killed the last one two hundred years
ago. I don't know what we're seeing, but they
aren't dragons.'
"But they carried us up in the air! In that hall

there must have been hundreds-'
"I expect it was just magic,' said Hrun, 
dismissivly."
'Well, they looked like dragons,' said Twoflower,
an air of defiance about him. "I always wanted to
see dragons, ever since I was a little lad. Dragons
flying around in the sky, breathing flames . . .'
"They just used to crawl around in swamps and

stuff, and all they breathed was stink,' said Hrun
lying down in the bunk. "They weren't very big
either. They used to collect firewood.'
"I heard they used to collect treasure,' said

Twoflower.
"And firewood. Hey,' Hrun added, brightening
'did you notice all those rooms they brought us
throUgh? Pretty impressive, I thought. Lot of good
stuff about, plus some of those tapestries have got
to be worth a fortune.' He scratched his chin
thoughtfully, making a noise like a porcupine
shouldering its way through gorse.
"What happens next?' asked Twoflower.
Hrun screwed a finger in his ear and inspected it
absently. .Oh,' he said, "I expect in a minute the door will

be flung back and I'll be dragged off to some sort of
temple arena where I'll fight maybe a couple of
giant spiders and an eight-foot slave from the
jungles of Klatch and then I'll rescue some kind of
a princess from the altar and then kill off a few
guards or whatever and then this girl will show me
the secret passage out of the place and we'll
liberate a couple of horses and escape with the
treasure.' Hrun leaned his head back on his hands
and looked at the ceiling, whistling tunelessly.
"All that?' said Twoflower.
"Usually: '
Twoflower sat down on his bunk and tried
to think. This proved difficult, because his mind was
awaSh with dragons.
Dragons!
Ever Since he was two years old he had been 
captivated by the pictures of the fiery beasts in The
Octarine Fairy Book. His sister had told him they
didn't really exist, and he recalled the bitter 
disappointment. If the world didn't contain those 
beautiful creatures, he'd decided, it wasn't half the world
it ought to be. And then later he had been bound
apprentice to Ninereeds the Masteraccount, who in
hiS grey-mindedness was everything that dragons
were not, and there was no time for dreaming.
But there was something wrong with these dragons. They were too small and sleek, compared
to the ones in his mind's eye. Dragons ought to be
big and green and clawed and exotic and 
firebreathing - big and green with long sharp . . .
Something moved at the edge of his vision, in the
furthest, darkest corner of the dungeon. When he
turned his head it vanished, although he thought
he heard the faintest of noises that might have
been made by claws scrabbling on stone.
"Hrun?' he said.
There was a snore from the other bunk.
Twoflower padded over to the corner, peering
gingerly at the stones in case there was a secret
panel. At that moment the door was flung back
thumping against the wall. Half a dozen guards
hurtled through it, spread out and flung them
selves down on one knee. Their weapons were
aimed exclusively at Hrun. When he thought about
this later, Twoflower felt quite offended.
Hrun snored.
A woman strode into the room. Not many
women can stride convincingly, but she managed
it. She glanced briefly at Twoflower, as one might
look at a piece of furniture, then glared down at the
man on the bed.
She was wearing the same sort of leather
harness that the dragonriders had been wearing
but in her case it was much briefer. That, and the
magnificent mane of chestnut-red hair that fell to
her waist, was her only concession to what even on
the discworld passed for decency. She was also
wearing a thoughtful expression.
Hrun made a glubbing noise, turned over, and
slept on.
With a careful movement, as though handling
some instrument of rare delicacy, the woman drew
a slim black dagger from her belt and stabbed
downward.
before it was halfway through its arc Hrun's
right hand moved so fast that it appeared to travel
between two points in space without at any time
occupying the intervening air. It closed around the
.woman's wrist with a dull smack. His other hand
groped feverishly for a sword that wasn't there . . .
Hrun awoke.
'Gngh?' he said, looking up at the woman with a
puzzled 'frown. Then he caught sight of the
bowmen.
"Let go,' said the woman, in a voice that was

calm and quiet and edged with diamonds. Hrun
released his grip slowly.
She stepped back, massaging her wrist and
looking at Hrun in much the same way that a cat
watches a mousehole.
"So,' she said at last. "You pass the first test.
What is your name, barbarian?'
"Who are you calling a barbarian?' snarled
Hrun.
"That is what I want to know.'
Hrun counted the bowmen slowly and made a
brief calculation. His shoulders relaxed
"I am Hrun of Chimeria. And you?'
"Lieasa Dragonlady.'
"You are the lord of this place?'
"That remains to be seen. You have the look
about you of a hired sword, Hrun of Chimeria. I
could use you - if you pass the tests, of course.
There are three of them. You have passed the first.'
'What are the other-' Hrun paused, his lips
moved soundlessly and then he hazarded, "two?'
"Perilous.'
'And the fee?'
"Valuable.'
'Excuse me,' said Twoflower
'And if I fail these tests?' said Hrun, ignoring
him. The air between Hrun and Liessa crackled
with small explosions of charisma as their gazes
sought for a hold.
'if you had failed the first test you would now be
dead. This may be considered a typical penalty.'
"Um, look,' began Twoflower. Liessa spared him

a brief glance, and appeared actually to notice him
for the first time.
'Take that away,' she said calmly, and turned
back to Hrun. Two of the guards shouldered their
bows, grasped Twoflower by the elbows and lifted
him off the ground. Then they trotted smartly
through the doorway.
"Hey,' said Twoflower, as they hurried down the
corridor outside, "where' (as they stopped in front
of another door) "is my' (as they dragged the door
open) ""Luggage?' He landed in a heap of what
might once have been straw. The door banged
shut, its echoes punctuated by the sound of bolts
being slammed home.
In the other cell Hrun had barely blinked.
"okay,' he said, "what is the second test?'
"You must kill my two brothers.' Hrun considered
thiS.
"Both at the same time, or one after the other?' he

said.
cConsecutively or concurrently,' she assured him
"What?'
"Just kill them,' she said sharply
"Good fighters, are they?'

'Renowned.'
"So in return for all this...?'
""You will wed me and become Lord of the

Wyrmberg.'
There was a long pause. Hrun's eyebrows twisted
themselves in unaccustomed calculation.
"I get you and this mountain?' he said at last.
'Yes.' She looked him squarely in the eye, and
her lips twitched. "The fee is worthwhile, I assure you."
"Hrun dropped his gaze to the rings on her hand
The stones were large, being the incredibly rare
blue milk diamonds from the clay basins of
sithoe. When he managed to turn his eyes from
them he saw Liessa glaring down at him in fury.
"So calculating? ' she rasped .  Hrun the Barbarian

who would boldly walk into the jaws of Death
Himself'
Hrun shrugged. "Sure,' he said, "the only reason
for walking into the jaws of Death is so's you can
steal His gold teeth.' He brought one arm around
expansively, and the wooden bunk was at the end
of it. It cannoned into the bowmen and Hrun
followed it joyously, felling one man with a blow
and snatching the weapon from another. A
moment later it was all over.
Liessa had not moved.
"Well?' she said.
"Well what?' said Hrun, from the carnage
"Do you intend to kill me?'
"What? Oh no. No, this is just, you know, kind of

a habit.' Just keeping in practice. So where are
these brothers?' He grinned.

Twoflower sat on his straw and stared into the
darkneSS. He wondered how long he had been
there. Hours, at least. Days, probably. He 
speculated that perhaps it had been years, and he had
Simply forgotten.
No, that sort of thinking wouldn't do. He tried to
think of something else - grass, trees, fresh air,
dragons. Dragons . . .
There was the faintest of scrabblings in the
darkneSs. Twoflower felt the sweat prickle on his
forehead.
Something was in the cell with him. Something
that made small noises, but even in the pitch
blackness gave the impression of hugeness. He felt
the air move.
When he lifted his arm there was the greasy feel
and faint shower of sparks that betokened a
localised magical field. Twoflower found himself
fervently wishing for light.
A gout of flame rolled past his head and struck
the far wall. As the rocks flashed into furnace heat
he looked up at the dragon that now occupied more
than half the cell.
"I obay, lord said a voice in his head.
By the glow of the crackling, spitting stone
Twoflower looked into his own reflection in two
enormous green eyes. Beyond them the dragon
was as multi-hued, horned, spiked and lithe as the
one in his memory - a real dragon. Its folded wings
were nevertheless still wide enough to scrape the
wall on both sides of the room. It lay with him
between its talons.
"obey?' he said, his voice vibrating with terror

and delight.
%CJfrcrur~9e, lord.
The glow faded away. Twoflower pointed a
trembling finger at where he remembered the door
to be and said, 'Open it!'
The dragon raised its huge head. Again the ball
of flame rolled out but this time, as the dragon's
neck muscles contracted, its colour faded from
orange to yellow, from yellow to white, and finally
to the faintest of blues. By that time the flame was
also very thin, and where it touched the wall the
molten rock spat and ran. When it reached the door
the metal exploded into a shower of hot droplets.
Black shadows arced and jiggered over the walls.
The metal bubbled for an eye-aching moment, and
then the door fell in two pieces in the passage
beyond. The flame winked out with a suddenness
that was almost as startling as its arrival.
Twoflower stepped gingerly over the cooling door
and looked up and down the corridor. It was empty.
the dragon followed. The heavy door frame
caused it some minor difficulty, which it overcame
with a swing of its shoulders that tore the timber
out and tossed it to one side. The creature looked
expectantly at Twoflower, its skin rippling and
twitching as it sought to open its wings in the
confines of the passage.
'How did you get in there?' said Twoflower. You summoned me, master.

'I don't remember doing that.'
In your mind. You. Called me up, in, your mind
thought the dragon, patiently.
"You mean I just thought of you and there You

were?' Yes .

'it was magic?'
Yes.
"But I've thought about dragons all my life.' 
In this place the frontier between thought and
reality is probably a little confused. All I know' is
that once I was not, and then you thought of me, and
then I was. Therefore, of course, I am yours to
command.
" Good grief'
Half a dozen guards chose that moment to turn
the bend in the corridor. They stopped, 
openmouthed. Then one remembered himself sufficiently
to raiSe his crossbow and fire.
The dragon's chest heaved. The quarrel exploded
into flaming fragments in mid-air. The guards
scurried out of sight. A fraction of a second later a
Wash of flame played over the stones where they
had been standing.
Twoflower looked up in admiration
cCan you fly too?' he said.
Of course.
Twoflower glanced up and down the corridor,
and decided against following the guards. Since he
knew himself to be totally lost already, any
direction was probably an improvement. He edged
past the dragon and hurried away, the huge Least
turning with difficulty to follow him.
They padded down- a series of passages that
cries-crossed like a maze. At one point Twoflower
thought he heard shouts, a long way behind them
but they soon faded away. Sometimes the dark
arch of a crumbling doorway loomed past them in
the gloom. Light filtered through dimly from
various shafts and, here and there, bounced off big
mirrors that had been mortared into angles of the
passage. Sometimes there was a brighter glow
from a distant light-well.
What was odd, thought Twoflower as he strolled
down a wide flight of stairs and kicked up 
billowing clouds of silver dust motes, was that the
tunnels here were much wider. And better con
structed, too. There were statues in niches set in
the walls, and here and there faded but interesting
tapestries had been hung. They mainly showed
dragons - dragons by the hundreds in flight or
hanging from their perch rings, dragons with men
on their backs hunting down deer and, sometimes
other men. Twoflower touched one tapestry 
gingerly. The fabric crumbled instantly in the hot dry
air, leaving only a dangling mesh where some
threads had been plaited with fine gold wire.
"I wonder why they left all this?' he said.

I don't know said a polite voice in his head.
He turned and looked up into the scaley horse
face above him.
"What is your name, dragon?' said Twoflower.

I don't know.
"I think I shall call you Ninereeds.

That is my name, then .
They waded through the all-encroaching dust %fU
aerie-s of huge, dark-pillared halls which had been
delved out of the solid rock. With some cunning
too, from floor to ceiling the walls were a mass of
statues, gargoyles, bas-reliefs and fluted columns
that cast weirdly-moving shadows when the dragon
gave an obliging illumination at Twoflower's
request. They crossed the lengthy galleries and
vast carven amphitheatres, all awash with deep
soft dust and completely uninhabited. No-one had
come to these dead caverns in centurieS.
Then he saw the path, leading away into yet
another dark tunnel mouth. Someone had been
using it regularly, and recently. It was a deep
narrow trail in the grey blanket.
Twoflower followed it. It led through still more
lofty halls and winding corridors quite big enough
for a dragon (and dragons had come this way once,
it Seemed; there was a room full of rotting harness,
dragon-giTed, and another room containing plate
and chain mail big enough for elephants). They
ended in a pair of green bronze doors, each so high
that they disappeared into the gloom. In front of
Twoflower, at chest height, was a small handle
shaped like a brass dragon.
When he touched it the doors swung open instantlY
and with a disconcerting noiselessness.
Instantly sparks crackled in Twoflower's hair
and there was a sudden gust of hot dry wind that
didn't disturb the dust in the way that ordinary
wind should but, instead, whipped it up 
momentarily into unpleasantly half-living shapes before
it settled again. In Twoflower's ears came the
Strange shrill twittering of the Things locked in
the distant dungeon Dimensions, out beyond the
fragile lattice of time and space. Shadows appeared
where there was nothing to cause them. The air
buzzed like a hive.
In short, there was a vast discharge of magic
going on around him.
The chamber beyond the door was lit by a pale
green glow. Stacked around the walls, each on its
own marble shelf, were tier upon tier of coffins. In
the centre of the room was a stone chair on a raised
dais, and it contained a slumped figure which did
not move but said, in a brittle old voice, "Come in,
young man.'
Twoflower stepped forward. The figure in the
seat was human, as far as he could make out in the
murky light, but there was something about the
awkward way it was sprawled in the chair that
made him glad he couldn't see it any clearer.
"I'm dead, you know,' came a voice from what
Twoflower fervently hoped was a head, in 
conversational tones. "I expect you can tell.'
"Um,' said Twoflower. "Yes.' He began to back
away.
'Obvious, isn't it?' agreed the voice. 'You'd be
Twoflower, wouldn't you? Or is that later?'
'later?' said Twoflower. "Later than what?' He
stopped.'
Well,' said the voice. "You see, one of the
disadvantages of being dead is that one is released as
it were from the bonds of time and therefore I can
see everything that has happened or will happen,
all at the same time except that of course I now
know that Time does not, for all practical purposes,
exist.'
"That doesn't sound like a disadvantage,' said"
Twoflower.
'You don't think so? Imagine every moment
being at one and the same time a distant memory
and a nasty surprise and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, I now recall what it was I am about to tell
you. Or have I already done so? That's a fine
looking dragon, by the way. Or don't I say that,
yet?"
"It is rather good. It just turned up,' said
twOflower. 'It turned up?' said the voice. "You summoned it!

'Yes, well, all I did-'
'You have the Power! '
"All I did was think of it.'
"That's what the Power is. Have I already told
you that I am Greicha the First? Or is that next?
i'm Sorry, but I haven't had too much experience oF
transcendence. Anyway, yes - the Power. It
summons dragons, you know.'
"I think you already told me that,' said 
Twoflower. "Did I? I certainly intended to,' said the dead

man. 'But how does it? I've been thinking about

dragons all my life, 'but this is the first time one
has turned up.'
"oh well, you see, the truth of the matter is that

dragons have never existed as you (and, until I
was poiSoned some three months ago,)  I understand
existence. I'm talking about the true dragon,
draconis nobilis, you understand; the swamp
dragon, draconis vulgaris, is a base creature and
not worth our consideration. The true dragon, on
the other hand, is a creature of such refinement of
spirit that they can only take on form in this world
if they are conceived by the most skilled 
imagination. And even then the said imagination must be
in some place heavily impregnated with magic
which helps to weaken the walls between the world
of the seen and unseen. Then the dragons pop
through, as it were, and impress their form' on this
world's possibility matrix. I was very good at it
when I was alive. I could imagine up to, oh, five
hundred dragons at a time. Now liessa, the most
Skilled of my children, can barely imagine fifty
rather nondescript creatures. So much for a
progreSSive education. She doesn't really believe in
them. That's why her dragons are rather boring
while yours,' said the voice of Greicha, "is almost
as good as some of mine used to be. A sight for sore
eyes, not that I have any to speak of now.'
Twoflower said hurriedly, "You keep saying
you're dead . . .'
"Well?'
"Well, the dead, er, they, you know, don't talk

much. As a rule.'
"I used to be an exceptionally powerful wizard.
My daughter poisoned me, of course. It is the
generally accepted method of succession in our
family, but,' the corpse sighed, or at 'least a sigh
came from the air a few feet above it, "it soon
became obvious that none of my three children is
sufficiently powerful to wrest the lordship of the
Wyrmberg from the other two. A most unsatis
factory arrangement. A kingdom like ours has to
have one ruler. So I resolved to remain alive in an
unofficial capacity, which of course annoys them
all immensely. I won't give my children the
satisfaction of burying me until there is only one of
them left to perform the ceremony.' There was a
nasty wheezing noise. Twoflower decided that it

was meant to be a chuckle.
"So it was one of them that kidnapped us?' said

Twoflower.
"liesa,' said the dead wizard's voice. "My

daughter. Her power is strongest, you know. My'
sons' dragons are incapable of flying more than a
few miles before they fade.'
"Fade? I did notice that we could see through the

one that brought us here,' said Twoflower. 'I
thought that was a bit odd.'
"Of course,' said Greicha. "The Power only works

near the Wyrmberg. It's the inverse square law
you know. At least, I think it is. As the dragons fly
further away they begin to dwindle. Otherwise my"
little Liesaa would be ruling the whole world by
now, if I know anything about it. But I can see I
mUStn't keep you. I expect you'll be wanting to
rescue your friend.'
Twoflower gaped. "Hrun?' he said.
"not him. The skinny wizard. My son T)iofrt is

trying to hack him to pieces. I admired the way' you
reScued him. Will, I mean.'
Twoflower drew himself up to his full height, an
easy task. "Where is he?' he said, heading towards
the door with what he hoped was an heroic stride.
"Just follow the pathway in the dust,' said the

voice. "Liessa comes to see me sometimes. She still
comes to see her old dad, my little girl. She was the
only one with the strength of character to murder
me. A chip off the old block. Good luck, by the way.
I seem to recall I said that. Will say it now, I mean.'
The rambling voice got lost in a maze of tenses
as Twoflower ran along the dead tunnels, with the
dragon loping along easily behind him. But soon
he was leaning against a pillar, completely out of
breath. It seemed ages since he'd had anything to
eat.
Why 'don't you fly? said Ninereeds, inside his
head. The dragon spread its wings and gave an
experimental flap, which lifted it momentarily off
the ground. Twoflower stared for a moment, then
ran forward and clambered quickly on to the
beast's neck. Soon they were airborne, the dragon
skimming along easily a few feet from the floor
and leaving a billowing cloud of dust in its wake.
Twoflower hung on as best he could as Ninereeds
swooped through a succession of caverns and
soared around a spiral staircase that could easily
have accommodated a retreating army. At the top
they emerged into the more inhabited regions, the
mirrors at every corridor corner brightly polished
and reflecting a pale light.
I .smell other dragon's.
The wings became a blur and Twoflower was
jerked back as the dragon veered and sped off
down a side corridor like a gnat-crazed swallow.
Another sharp turn sent them soaring out of a
tunnel mouth in the side of a vast cavern. There
were rocks far below, and up above were broad
shafts of light from great holes near the roof. A lot
of activity on the ceiling, too . . . as Ninereeds
hovered, thumping the air with his wings, two
flower peered up at the shapes of roosting beastS
and tiny men-shaped dots that were somehow
walking upside down.
This is a roosting hall, said the dragon in
a satisfied tone.
As Twoflower watched, one of the shapes far
above detached itself from the roof and began to
grow larger . ,

Rincewind watched as I,io'rt's pale face dropped
away from him. This is funny, gibbered a small
part of his mind, why am I rising?
Then he began to tumble in the air and reality
took over. He was dropping to the distant, 
guano"speckled rocks.
His brain reeled with the thought. The words of
the Spell picked just that moment to surface from
the depths of his mind, as they always did in time
of crisis. Why not say us, they seemed to urge.
What have you got to lose?
Rincewind waved a hand in the gathering 
slipstream.
"Ashonai,' he called. The word formed in front of
him in a cold blue flame that streamed in the wind.
He waved the other hand, drunk with terror and
magic.
"Ehiris,' he intoned. The sound froze into a
flickering orange word that hung beside its 
companion. ,,""Urshoring, Kvanti. Pythan. N'gurad. 
Ferin
gomalee.' As the words blazed their rainbow
colours around him he flung his hands back and
prepared to say the eighth and final word that
would appear in corruscating octarine and seal the
spell. The imminent rocks were forgotten.

The breath was knocked out of him, the spell ' he began,
scattered and snuffed out. A pair of arms locked
around hiS waist and the whole world jerked
sideways as the dragon rose out of its long dive
claws grazing just for a moment the topmost rock
on the Wyrmberg's noisome floor. Twoflower
laughed triumphantly.
"Got him!'
.And the dragon, curving gracefully at the trip of
his hight, gave a lazy flip of his wings and soared
through a cavemouth into the morning air.

At noon, in a wide green meadow on the lush
tableland that was the top of the 
impossibly-balanced Wyrmberg, the dragons and their riders
formed a wide circle. There was room beyond them
for a rabble of servants and slaves and others who
scratched a living here on the roof of the world,
and they were all watching the figures clustered in
the centre of the grassy arena. The group contained a number of senior 
dragon
lords, and among them were Lie!tt and his brother
LiarteB. The former was still rubbing his legs, with
Small grimaces of pain. Slightly to one side stood
Liessa and Hrun, with some of the woman's own
followerS. Between the two factions stood the
Wyrmberg's hereditary Loremaster.
"As you know,' he said uncertainly, "the 
not-fully-late Lord of the Wyrmberg, Greicha the First, has
stipulated that there will be no succession until one
of his children feels himself - or as it might be,
herself - powerful enough to challenge and defeat
his or her siblings in mortal combat.'
"Yes', yes, we know all that. Get on with it,' said a

thin peevish voice from the air beside him.
The loremaster swallowed. He had never come
to terms with his former master's failure to expire
properly. Is the old buzzard dead or isn't he? he
wondered.
"It is not certain,' he quavered, "whether it is

allowable to issue a challenge by proxy-'
"It is, it is,' snapped Greicha's disembodied voice.
'It shows intelligence. Don't take all day about it.'
'I challenge you,' said Hrun, glaring at the
brothers, "both at once.'
Lie!tt and Liartes exchanged looks.
"You'll fight us both together?' said l'iartes, a
tall, wiry man with long black hair.
"Yah.'
"That's pretty uneven odds, isn't it?
"Yah. I outnumber you one to two.'
Liofrt scowled. "You arrogant barbarian-'
"That just about does it,' growled Hrun. "I'll-'
The Loremaster put out a blue-veined hand to
restrain him.
"It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground,'

he said, and paused while he considered the sense
of this. "You know what I mean, anyway,' he
hazarded, giving up, and added "As the challenged
parties my lords Lie!tt and Liartes have choice of
weapons.'
"Dragons,' they said together. Liessa snorted.
"Dragons can be used offensively, therefore they

are weapons,' said Lie!tt firmly. 'if you disagree we
can fight over it.'
"Yah,' said his brother, nodding at Hrun.
The Loremaster felt a ghostly finger prod him in
the chest 'Don't stand there with your mouth open,' said
Greicha's graveyard voice. "Just hurry up, will

you?" Hrun stepped back, shaking his head.

"oh no,' he said. 'Once was enough. I'd rather be

dead than fight on one of those things.'
"Die, then,' said the Loremaster, as kindly as he
could manage.
Lie!tt and Liartes were already striding back
across the turf to where the servants stood waiting
with their mounts. Hrun 'turned to Liessa. She
Shrugged. "don't I even get a sword?' he pleaded. "A knife,
even?'
"No,' she said. "I didn't expect this.' She suddenly

looked smaller, all defiance gone. 'i'm sorry.'
"You're sorry?'
"Yes. I'm sorry.'
"Yes, I thought you said you're sorry.'
'Don't glare at me like that! I can imagine you
the finest dragon to ride'
"NO!'
The Loremaster wiped his nose on a 
handkerchief, held the little silken square aloft for a
moment, then let it fall.
A boom of wings made Hrun spin around.
Liofrt's dragon was already airborne and circling
around towards them. As it swooped low over the
turf a billow of flame shot from its mouth, scoring
a black Streak across the grass that rushed towards
Hrun.
At the last minute he pushed Liessa aside, and
felt the wild pain of the flame on his arm as he
dived for Safety. He rolled as he hit the ground, and
flipped on to his feet again while he looked around
frantically for the other dragon. It came in from
one side, and Hrun was forced to take a 
badly-judged standing jump to escape the flame. The
dragon's tail whipped around as it passed and
caught him a stinging blow across the forehead.
He pushed himself upright, shaking his head to
maKe the wheeling stars go away. His blistered
back screamed pain at him.
Lio'rt came in for a second run, but slower this
time to allow for the big man's unexpected agility.
As the ground drifted up he saw the barbarian
standing stock still, chest heaving, arms hanging
loosely by his sides. An easy target.
As his dragon swooped away Lio'rt turned his
head, expecting to see a dreadfully big cinder.
There was nothing there. Puzzled, Lie!tt turned
back.
Hrun, heaving himself over the dragon's shoulder
scales with one hand and beating out his flaming
hair with the other, presented himself to his view.
Lie!rt's hand flew to his dagger, but pain had
sharpened Hrun's normally excellent reflexes to
needle point. A backhand blow hammered into the
dragonlord's wrist, sending the dagger arcing
away towards the ground, and another caught the
man full on the chin.
The dragon, carrying the weight of two men, was
only a few yards above the grass. This turned out
to be fortunate, because at the moment Lie!tt lost
consciousness the dragon winked out of existence.
Liessa hurried across the grass and helped Hrun
stagger to his feet. He blinked at her.
"What happened? What happened?' he said

thickly.
'That was really fantastic,' she said. "The way
you turned that somersault in mid-air and 
everything.'

"Yah, but what happened?'
"it's rather difficult to explain-'
Hrun peered up at the sky. Liartes
by far the
most cautious of the two brothers, was circling
high above them.
"Well, you've got about ten seconds to try,' he

said "The dragons-'

'Yah?'
"They're imaginary.'
''Like all these imaginary burns on my arm, you
mean?' "Yes. No!' she shook her head violently. "I'll have

to tell you later! '
'Fine, if you can find a really good medium,
snapped Hrun. He glared up at Liartes, who was
beginning to descend in wide sweeps.
"Just listen, will you? Unless my brother is

conscious his dragon can't exist, it's got no 
pathway through to this-'
'Run!' shouted Hrun. He threw her away from
him and flung himself flat on the ground as
Liartes' dragon thundered by, leaving another
smoking scar across the turf.
While the creature sought height for another
Sweep Hrun scrambled to his feet and set off at a
dead run for the woods at the edge of the arena.
They were sparse, little more than a wide and
overgrown hedge, but at least no dragon would be
able to fly through them.
It didn't try. Liartes brought his mount in to
land on the turf a few yards away and dismounted
casually. The dragon folded its wings and poked
its head in among the greenery, while its master
leaned against a tree and whistled tunelessly.
"I can burn you out,' said Liartes, after a while.
The bushes remained motionless.
'Perhaps you're in that holly bush over there?'
The holly buSh became a waxy ball of flame.
"I'm sure I can see movement in those ferns.'
The ferns became mere skeletons of white ash.
"You're only prolonging it, barbarian. Why not

give in now? I've burned lots of people; it doesn't
hurt a bit,' said L)iartes, looking sideways at the
bushes.
The dragon continued through the spinney,
incinerating every likely-looking bush and clump of ferns. L)iartes drew his sword and waited.

Hrun dropped from a tree and landed running.
Behind him the dragon roared and crashed
through the bushes as it tried to turn around, but
Hrun was running, running, with his gaze fixed on
Liartes and a dead branch in his hands.
It is a little known but true fact that a two legged
creature can usually beat a four legged creature
over a short distance, simply because of the time it
takes the quadruped to get its legs sorted out. Hrun
heard the scrabble of claws behind him and then
an ominous thump. The dragon had half-opened
its wings and was trying to fly.
As Hrun bore down on the dragonlord Liartes'
sword came up wickedly, to be caught on the
branch. Then Hrun cannoned into him and the two
men sprawled on the ground.
The dragon roared.
liartes screamed as Hrun brought a knee
upwards with anatomical precision, but managed
a wild blow that rebroke the barbarian's nose for
him.
Hrun kicked away and scrambled to his feet, to
find himself looking up into the wild horse-face of
the dragon, its nostrils distended.
He lashed out with a foot and caught Liartes,
who was trying to stand up, on the side of his head.
The man slumped.
The dragon vanished. The ball of fire that was
billowing towards Hrun faded until, when it
reached him, it was no more than a puff of warm
air. Then there was no sound but the crackle of
burning bushes
, , Hrun slung the unconscious dragonlord over his
shoulder and set off at a trot back to the arena.
Halfway there he found IJio!tt sprawled on the
ground, one leg bent awkwardly. He stooped and,
with a grunt, hoisted the man on to his vacant
shoulder.
Liessa and the Loremaster were waiting on a
raised dais at one end of the meadow. The 
dragonwoman had quite recovered her composure now,
and looked levelly at Hrun as he threw the two
men down on the steps before her. The people
around her were standing in deferential poses, like
a court.
cKill them,' she said.
'I kill in my own time,' he said. "In any case,
killing unconscious people isn't right.'
"I can't think of a more opportune time,' said the
Loremaster. Liessa snorted.
"Then I shall banish them,' she said. "Once they
are beyond the reach of the Wyrmberg's magic
then they'll have no Power. They'll be simply
brigands. Will that satisfy you?'
"Yes.'
"I am surprised that you are so merciful, 
haHrun.'
Hrun shrugged. "A man in my position, he can't
afford to be anything else, he's got to consider his
image.' He looked around. "Where's the next teSt,
then?'
"I warn you that it is perilous. If you wish, you
may leave now. If you pass the test, however, you
will become lord of the Wyrmberg and, of course,
my lawful husband.'
Hrun met her gaze. He thought about his life, to
date. It suddenly seemed to him to have been full of
long damp nights sleeping under the stars, 
desperate fights with trolls, city guards, countless bandits and evil priests and, on at least' three
occasions, actual demigods - and for what? Well, for quite a lot of treasure, he had to admit - but

where had it all gone? Rescuing beleagured
maidens had a certain passing reward, but most of
the time he'd finished up by setting them up in
some city somewhere with a handsome dowry,
because after a while even the most agreeable 
exmaiden became possessive and had scant sympathy
for his efforts to rescue her sister sufferers. In
short, life had really left him with little more than
a reputation and a network of scars. Being a lord
might be fun. Hrun grinned. With a base like this,
all these dragons and a good bunch of fighting
men, a man could really be a contender.
Besides, the wench was not uncomely.
"The third test?' she said.
"Am I to be weaponless again?' said Hrun.
Liessa reached up and removed her helmet
letting the coils of red hair tumble out. Then she
unfastened the brooch of her robe. Underneath, she
was naked.
As Hrun's gaze swept over her his mind began to
operate two notional counting machines. One
assessed the gold in her bangles, the tiger-rubies
that ornamented her toe-rings, the diamond spangle
that adorned her navel, and two highly individual
whirligigs of silver filigree. The other was plugged
straight into his libido. Both produced tallies that
pleased him mightily.
As she raised a hand and proffered a glass of
wine she smiled, and said, "I think not.'

'He didn't attempt to rescue you,' Rincewind
pointed out as a last resort.
He clung desperately to Twoflower's waist as the
dragon circled slowly, tilting the world at a
dangerous angle. The new knowledge that the
scaley back he was astride only existed as a sort of
threedimensional daydream did not, he had soon
realised, do anything at all for his ankle-wrenching
sensations of vertigo. His mind kept straying
towards the posSible results of Twoflower losing
his concentration.
"Not even Hrun could have prevailed against
those crossbows,' said Twoflower stoutly.
As the dragon rose higher above the patch of
woodland, where the three of them had slept a
damp and uneasy sleep, the sun rose over the edge
of the disc. Instantly the gloomy blues and greys of
pre-dawn were transformed into a bright bronze
river that flowed across the world, flaring into gold
where it struck ice or water or a light-dam. (Owing
to the denSity of the magical field surrounding the
disc, light itself moved at sub-sonic speeds; this
interesting property was well utilized by the Sorca
people of the Great Nef, for example, who over the
centuries had constructed intricate and delicate
dams, and valleys walled with polished silica, to
catch the slow sunlight and sort of store it. The
Scintillating reservoirs of the Nef, overflowing
after several weeks of uninterrupted sunlight, were
a truly magnificent sight from the air and it is
therefore unfortunate that Twoflower and 
Rincewind did not happen to glance in that direction.)
In front of them the billion-ton impossibility that
was the magic-wrought Wyrmberg hung against
the sky and that was not too bad, until Rincewind
turned his head and saw the mountain's shadow
Slowly unroll itself across the cloudscape of the
world . . .
'What can you see?' said Twoflower to the
dragon.
I see fighting on the top of the mountain came
the gentle reply. 'See?'
said Twoflower. "Hrun's probably fighting
for his life at this very moment.'
Rincewind was silent. After a moment 
Twoflower looked around. The wizard was staring
intently at nothing at all, his lips moving 
soundlessly.
"Rincewind?.'
The wizard made a small croaking noise.
"I'm sorry,' said Twoflower. 'What did you say?'
all the way . . . the great fall . . . muttered
Rincewind, His eyes focused, looked puzzled for a
moment, then widened in terror. He made the
mistake of looking down.
"Aargh,' he opined, and began to slide. 
Twoflower grabbed him.
"What's the matter?'
Rincewind tried shutting his eyes, but there were
no eyelids to his imagination and it was staring
widely.
"Don't you get scared of heights?' he managed to

say.
Twoflower looked down at the tiny landscape,
mottled with cloud shadows. The thought of fear
hadn't actually occurred to him.
"No,' he said. "Why should I? You're just as dead
if you fall from forty feet as you are from four
thousand fathoms, that's what I say.'
Rincewind tried to consider this dispassionately,
but couldn't see the logic of it. It wasn't the actual
falling, it was the hitting he . . .
Twoflower grabbed him quickly.
"Steady on,' he said cheerfully. "We're nearly
there '

'I wish I was back in the city,' moaned 
Rincewind. "I wish I was back on the ground.'
'I wonder if dragons can fly all the way to the
stars?' mused Twoflower. 'Now that would be
something . .
'you're mad,' said Rincewind flatly. There was
no reply from the tourist, and when the wizard
craned around he was horrified to see Twoflower
looking up at the paling stars with an odd smile on
his face.
"Don't" you even think about it,' added 
rincewind, menacingly.
the man you seek is talking to the 
dragon-woman said the dragon.
'Hmm?' said Twoflower, still looking at the
paling stars.
"What?' said Rincewind urgently.
"Oh yes. Hrun,' said Twoflower. "i hope we're in

time. Dive now. "go low.'
Rincewind opened his eyes as the wind increased
to a whistling gale. Perhaps they were blown open
- the wind certainly made them impossible to shut.
The flat summit of the Wyrmberg rose up at
them, lurched alarmingly, then somersaulted into
a green blur that flashed by on either side. Tiny
WOods and fields blurred into a rushing patchwork.
A brief silvery flash in the landscape may have
been the little river that overflowed into the air at
the plateau's rim. Rincewind tried to force the
memory out of his mind , but it was rather enjoying
itself there, terrorizing the other occupants and
kicking over the furniture.

"I think not,' said Liessa.

Hrun took the wine cup, slowly. He grinned like a
pumpkin.
Around  the arena the dragons started to bay.
Their riders looked up. And something like a green
blur flashed across the arena, and Hrun had gone.
The winecup hung momentarily in the air, then
crashed down on the steps. Only then did a single
drop spill.
This was because, in the instant of enfolding
Hrun gently in his claws, Ninereeds the dragon
had momentarily synchronized their bodily rhythms.
Since the dimension of the imagination is much
more complex than those of time and space, which
are very junior dimensions indeed, the effect of this
was to instantly transform a stationary and
priapic Hrun into a Hrun moving sideways at
eighty miles an hour with no ill-effects whatsoever,
except for a few wasted mouthfuls of wine. Another
effect was to cause Liessa to scream with rage and
summon her dragon. As the gold beast materialised
in front of her she leapt astride it, still naked, and
snatched a crossbow from one of the guards. Then
she was airborne, while the other dragonriders
swarmed towards their own beasts.
The Loremaster, watching from the pillar he had
prudently slid behind in the mad scramble
happened at that moment to catch the cross
dimensional echoes of a theory being at the same
instant hatched in the mind of an early psychiatrist
in an adjacent universe, possibly because the
dimension-leak was flowing both ways, and for a
moment the psychiatrist saw the -girl on the
dragon. The loremaster smiled.
"Want to bet that she won't catch him?' said
Greicha, in a voice of worms and sepulchres, right
by his ear.
The loremaster shut his eyes and swallowed
hard.
"i thought that my Lord would now be residing

fully in the Dread Land,' he managed.
"I am a wizard,' said Greicha. "Death Himself

must claim a wizard. And, aha, He doesn't appear
to be in the neighbourhood . . .'
SHAL WE GO? asked Death.
He was on a white horse, a horse of flesh and
blood but red of eye and fiery of nostril, and He
stretched out a bony hand and took Greicha's soul
out of the air and rolled it up until it was a point of
painful light, and then He swallowed it.
Then He clapped spurs to his steed and it sprang
into the air, sparks corruscating from its hooves.
"Lord Greicha!' whispered the old Loremaster, as

the universe flickered around him.
'That was a mean trick,' came the wizard's voiCe,
a mere speck of sound disappearing into the
infinite black dimensions.
"My Lord . . . what is "death 'like?' called the old
man tremulously.
"When I have investigated it fully, I will let you

know,' came the faintest of modulations on the
breeze.
"Yes,' murmured the loremaster. A thought

Struck him. "During daylight, please,' he added.

'You clowns,' screamed Hrun, from his perch on
Ninereed's foreclaws.
"What did he say?' roared Rincewind, as the
dragon ripped its way through the air in the race
for the heights.
"Didn't hear.' bellowed Twoflower, his voice torn
away by the gale. As the dragon banked slightly he
looked down at the little toy spinning top that was
the mighty Wyrmberg and saw the swarm of
creatures rising in pursuit. Ninereed's wings
pounded and flicked the air away contemptuously.
Thinner air, too. Twoflower's ear popped for the
third time.
Ahead of the swarm, he noticed, was a golden
dragon. Someone on it, too.
"Hey, are you all right?' said Rincewind urgently.

He had to drink in several lungfuls of the strangely
distilled air in order to get the words out.
"i could have been a lord, and you clowns had to
go and-' Hrun gasped. as the chill thin air drew
the life even out of his mighty chest
"Wass happnin to the air?' muttered Rincewind
Blue lights appeared in front of his eyes.
"Unk,' said Twoflower, and passed out.

The dragon vanished.
For a few seconds the three men continued
upwards. Twoflower and the wizard presenting an
odd picture as they sat one in front of the other
with their legs astride something that wasn't there,
Then what passed for gravity on the Disc recovered
from the surprise, and claimed them.
At that moment Liassa's dragon flashed by, and
Hrun landed heavily across its neck. Liassa
leaned over and kissed him.
This detail was lost to Rincewind as he dropped
away, with his arms still clasped around 
Twoflower's waist. The disc was a little round map
pinned against the sky. It didn't appear to be
moving, but Rincewind knew that it was. The
whole world was coming towards him like a giant
custard pie.
"Wake up!' he shouted, above the roar of the

wind. "Dragons! Think of dragons!'
There was a flurry of wings as they plummeted
through the host of pursuing creatures, which fell
away and up. Dragons screamed and wheeled
across the sky.
No answer came from Twoflower. Rincewind's
robe whipped around him, but he did not wake.
Dragons, thought Rincewind in a panic. He tried
to concentrate his mind, tried to envisage a really
lifelike dragon. If he can do it, he thought, then so
can I. But nothing happened.
The disc was bigger now, a cloud-swirled circle
rising gently underneath them.
Rincewind tried again, screwing up his eyes and
straining every nerve in his body. A dragon. HiS
imagination, a somewhat battered and over-used
%Srpn, reached out for a dragon . . . any dragon.
IT WON'T WORK, laughed a voice like the dull
tolling of a funereal bell, YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN
THEM.
rincewind looked at the terrible mounted 
apparition grinning at him, and his mind bolted in terror.
There was a brilliant flash .
There was utter darkness.
There was a soft floor under Rincewind's feet, a
pink light around him, and the sudden shocked
cries of many people.
He looked around wildly. He was standing in
some kind of tunnel, which was mostly filled with
seats in which outlandishly-dressed people had
been strapped. They were all shouting at him.
'Wake up,' he hissed. "Help me!'
Dragging the still-unconscious tourist with him
he backed away from the mob until his free hand
found an oddly-Shaped door handle. He twisted it
and ducked through, then slammed it hard.
He stared around the new room in which he
found himself and met the terrified gaze of a young
woman who dropped the tray she was holding and
Screamed.
It sounded like the sort of scream that brings
muscular help. Rincewind, awash with fear-distilled
adrenalin, turned and barged past her. There were
more seats here, and the people in them ducked as
he dragged Twoflower urgently along the central
gangway. Beyond the rows of seats were little
windows. Beyond the windows, against a 
background of fleecy clouds, was a dragon's wing. It
Was silver.
I've been eaten by a dragon, he thought. That's
ridiculous, he replied, you can't see out of dragons.
Then hiS shoulder hit the door at the far end of the
tunnel, and he followed it through into a 
cone-shaped room that was even stranger than the
tunnel.
It was full of tiny glittering lights. Among the
lights, in contoured chairs, were four men who
were now staring at him open-mouthed. As he
stared back he saw their gazes dart sideways.
Rincewind turned slowly. Beside him was a fifth
man - youngish, bearded, as swarthy as the nomad
folk of the Great Nef.
"Where am I?' said the wizard. "in the belly of a

dragon?'
The young man crouched back and shoved a
small black box in the wizard's face. The men in
the chairs ducked down.
"What is it?' said Rincewind. 'A picture box?' He

reached out and took it, a movement which
appeared to surprise the swarthy man, who
shouted and tried to snatch it back. There was
another shout, this time from one of the men in the
chairs. Only now he wasn't sitting. He was 
standing up, pointing something small and metallic at
the young man.
It had an amazing effect. The man crouched
back with his hands in the air.
"Please give me the bomb, sir,' said the man with

the metallic thing. 'Carefully, please.'
"This thing?' said Rincewind. "You have it' I

don't want it!' the man took it very carefully and
put it on the floor. The seated men relaxed, and one
of them started speaking urgently to the wall. The
wizard watched him in amazement.
"Don't move.' snapped the man with the metal 

an amulet, Rincewind decided, it must be an
amulet. The swarthy man backed into the corner.
"That was a very brave thing you did,' said
Amulet-holder to Rincewind. 'You know that?
"What?'
"What's the matter with your friend
'friend?'
rincewind looked down at Twoflower, who was
still slumbering peacefully. That was no surprise.
What was really surprising was that 'twoflower
was wearing new clothes. Strange clothes. His
britches now ended just above his knees. Above
that he wore some sort of vest of brightly-striped
material. On his head was a ridiculous little straw
hat. With a feather in it.
An awkward feeling around the leg regions made
Rincewind look down. His clothes had changed
too. Instead of the comfortable old robe, so 
marvellously well-adapted for speed into action in all
poSSible contingencies, his legs were encased in
cloth tubes. He was wearing a jacket of the same
grey material . . .
Until now he'd never heard the language the
man with the amulet was using. It was uncouth
and vaguely Hublandish - so why could he 
understand every word?
.Let's see, they'd suddenly appeared in this
dragon after, they'd materialised in this drag,
they'd sudd, they'd, they'd - they had struck 'up a
conversation in the airport so naturally they had
chosen to sit together on the plane, and he'd
promised to show Jack zueiblumen around when
they got back to the States. Yes, that was it. And
then Jack had been taken ill and he'd panicked
and come through here and surprised this hijacker.
Of course. What on earth was "Hublandish'?
Dr Rjinswand rubbed his forehead. What he
could do with was a drink.

Ripples of paradox spread out across the sea of
causality.
PoSsibly the most important point that would
have to be borne in mind by anyone outside the
sum totality of the multiverse was that although
the wizard and the tourist had indeed only recently
appeared in an aircraft in mid-air, they had also at
one and the same time been riding on that
aeroplane in the normal course of things. That is to
say: 'while it was true that they had just appeared
in this particular set of dimensions, it was also true
that they had been living in them all along. It is at
this point that normal language gives up, and goes
and has a drink.
The point is that several quintillion atoms had
just materialized (however, they had not. See
below) in a universe where they should not strictly
have been. The usual upshot of this sort of thing iS
a vast explosion but, since universes are fairly
resilient things, this particular universe had saved
itself by instantaneously unravelling its 
spacetime continuum back to a point where the surplus
atoms could safely be accommodated and then
rapidly rewinding back to that circle of firelight
which for want of a better term its inhabitants
were wont to call The Present. This had of course
changed history - there had been a few less wars, a
few extra dinosaurs and so on - but on the whole
the episode passed remarkably quietly.
Outside of this particular universe, however, the
repercussions of the sudden double-take bounced to
and fro across the face of The Sum of Things,
bending whole dimensions and sinking galaxies
without a trace.
All this was however totally lost on Dr 
Rjinswand, 35, a bachelor, born in Sweden, raised in
New Jersey, and a specialist in the breakaway
oxidation phenomena of certain nuclear reactors.
Anyway, he probably would not have believed any
of it.
Zweiblumen still seemed to be unconscious. The
stewardess, who had helped Rjinswand to his seat
to the applause of the rest of the passengers, was
bering over him anxiously.
i radioed ahead,' she told Rjinswand
"there'll be an ambulance waiting when we land
Uh, it says on the passenger list that you're a
doctor' "I don't know what's wrong with him,' said

Rincewand hurriedly. it might be a different
matter if he was a Magnox reactor of course. Is it
shock of some kind?'
"I've never'
Her sentence terminated in a tremendous crash
from the rear of the plane. Several passengers
screamed. A sudden gale of air swept every loose
magazine and newspaper into a screaming 
whirlwind that twisted madly down the aisle.
Something else was coming up the aisle. 
Something big and oblong and wooden and 
brassbound. It had hundreds of legs. If it was what it
seemed - a walking chest of the kind that appeared
in pirate stories brim full of ill-gotten gold and
jewels - then what would have been its lid suddenly
gaped open.
There were no jewels. But there were lots of big
square teeth, white as sycamore, and a pulsating
tongue, red as mahogany.
An ancient suitcase was coming to eat him.
Rjinswand clutched at the unconscious 
Zweiblumen for what little comfort there was there, and
gibbered. He wished fervently that he was 
somewhere else . . .
There was a sudden darkness.
There was a brilliant flash.
The sudden departure of several quintillion
atoms from a universe that they had no right to be
in anyway caused a wild imbalance in the
harmony of the Sum Totality which it tried
frantically to retrieve, wiping out a number of 
subrealities in the process. Huge surges of raw magiC
boiled uncontrolled around the very foundations of
the multiverse itself, welling up through every
crevice into hitherto peaceful dimensions and
causing novas, supernovas, stellar collisions, wild
flights of geese and drowning of imaginary 
continents. Worlds as far away as the other end of time
experienced brilliant sunsets of corruscating
octarine as highly-charged magical particles roared
through the atmosphere. In the cometary hBlo
around the fabled Ice System of Zeret a noble
comet died as a prince flamed across the sky.
All this was however lost on Rincewind as,
clutching the inert Twoflower around the waist, he
plunged towards the Disc's sea several hundred
feet below. Not even the convulsions of all the
dimensions could break the iron Law of the 
Conservation of Energy, and Rjinswand's brief journey
in the plane had sufficed to carry him several
hundred miles horizontally and seven thousand
feet vertically.
The word ''plane' flamed and died in Rincewind's
mind.
Was that a ship down there?
The cold waters of the Circle Sea roared up at
him and sucked him down into their green,
suffocating embrace. A moment later there was
another splash as the luggage, still bearing a label
carrying the powerful travelling rune TWA, also
hit the sea.
Later on, they used it as a raft.
CLOSE TO THE EDGE

It had been a long time in the making. Now it was
almost' completed, and the slaves hacked away at
the last clay remnants of the mantle.
Where other slaves were industriously rubbing
its metal flanks with silver sand it was already
beginning to gleam in the sun with the silken
organic sheen of young bronze. It was still warm
even after a week of cooling in the casting pit.
The Arch-astronomer of Krull motioned lightly
with his hand and his bearers set the throne down
in the .shadow of the hull.
Like a fiSh, he thought. A great flying fish. And
of what seas?
"it is indeed magnificent,' he whispered. "A work

of true art.'
"Craft,' said the thickset man by his side. The
Arch-astronomer turned slowly and looked up at
the man's impassive face. It isn't particularly hard
for a face to look impassive-when there are two
golden 'Spheres where the eyes should be. They
glowed disconcertingly.
"Craft, indeed,' said the astronomer, and smiled
"I would imagine that there is no greater craftsman
on the entire disc than you, Goldeneyes. Would I be
right?'
The craftsman paused, his naked body - naked
at least, were it not for a toolbelt, a wrist abacus
and a deep tan - tensing as he considered the
implicationS of this last remark. The golden eyes
appeared to be looking into some other world.
"The anSwer is both yes and no,' he said at last
Some of the lesser astronomers behind the throne
gasped at this lack of etiquette, but the Arch
astronomer appeared not to have noticed it.
cContinue,' he said
"There are some essential skills that I lack. Yet I
am Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos,' said the
craftsman. "I made the Metal Warriors that guard
the Tomb of Pitchiu, I designed the Light Dams of
the Great Nef, I built the Palace of the Seven
Deserts. And yet-' he reached up and tapped one
of his eyes, which rang faintly, 'when I built the
golem army for Pitchiu he loaded me down with
gold and then, so that I would create no other work
to rival my work for him, he had my eyes put out.'
"Wise but cruel,' said the Arch-astronomer 
sym
pathetically.
"Yah. So I learned to hear the temper of metals

and to see with my fingers. I learned how to
distinguish ores by taste and smell. I made these
eyes, but I cannot make them see.
"Next I was summoned to build the Palace of the

Seven Deserts, as a result of which the Emir
showered me with silver and then, not entirely to
my surprise, had my right hand cut off.'
"A grave hindrance in your line of business,'

nodded the Arch-astronomer.
"I used some of the silver to make myself this new

hand, putting to use my unrivalled knowledge of
levers and fulcrums. It suffices. After I created the
first great Light Dam, which had a capacity of
,r)0,000 daylight hours, the tribal councils of the Nef
loaded me down with fine silks and then 
hamstrung me so that I could not escape. As a result I
was put to some inconvenience to use the silk and
some bamboo to build a flying machine from which
I could launch myself from the top-most turret of
my prison.'
"Bringing you, by various diversions, to Krull,'

said the Arch-astronomer. "And one cannot help
feeling that some alternative occupation - lettuce
farming, say - would offer somewhat less of a risk
of being put to death by instalments. Why do you
continue in it? Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged.
"I'm good at it,' he said.
The Arch-astronomer looked up again
bronze fish, shining now like a gong in the
noontime sun.
"Such beauty,' he murmured. "And unique. Come,
Dactylos. Recall to me what it was that I promised
should be your reward?'
'You asked me to design a fish that would swim
through the seas of space that lie between the
worlds,' intoned the master craftsman. "In return
for which - in return-'
'Yes? My memory is not what it used to be,'
purred the Arch-astronomer, stroking the warm
bronze.
"in return,' continued Dactylos, without much

apparent hope, "you would set me free, and refrain
from chopping off any appendages. I require no
treasure.'
"Ah, yes. I recall now.' The old man raised a 
blueveined hand, and added, "I lied.'
There waS the merest whisper of sound, and the
goldeneyed man rocked on his feet. Then he looked
down at the arrowhead protruding from his chest,
and nodded wearily. A speck of blood bloomed on
his lips.
There was no sound in the entire square (save for
the buzzing of a few expectant flies) as his silver
hand came up, very slowly, and fingered the
arrowhead.
Dactylos grunted.
'Sloppy workmanship,' he said, and toppled
backwards.
The Arch-astronomer prodded the body with his
toe, and sighed.
'There will be a short period of mourning, as
befits a master craftsman,' he said. He watched a
bluebottle alight on one golden eye and fly away
puzzled . . . "That would seem to be long enough,'
said the Arch-astronomer, and beckoned a couple
of slaves to carry the corpse away.
"Are the chelonauts ready?' he asked.

The master launchcontroller hustled forward.
"indeed, your prominence,' he said.
"The correct prayers are being intoned?
"quite so, your prominence.'
"How long to the doorway?'
"The launch window,' corrected the master
launchcontroller carefully. "Three days, your 
prominence. Great A'Tuin's tail will be in an unmatched
position.'
'Then all that remains,' concluded the 
Arch-astronomer, "is to find the appropriate sacrifiCe.'
The master launchcontroller bowed.
"The ocean shall provide,' he said.
The old man smiled. it always does,' he said

"if only you could navigate'
"if only you could steer-'

A wave washed over the deck. Rincewind and
Twoflower looked at each other. "keep bailing!'
they screamed in unison, and reached for the
buckets.
After a while Twoflower's peevish voice filtered
up from the waterlogged cabin.
"I don't see how it's my fault,' he said. He handed

up another bucket, which the wizard tipped over
the side.
"You were supposed to be on watch,' snapped

Rincewind.
'I saved us from the slavers, remember,' said
Twoflower.
'i'd rather be a slave than a corpse,' replied the
wizard. He straightened up and looked out to sea.
He appeared puzzled.
He was a somewhat different Rincewind from
the one that escaped the fire of Ankh-Morpork
six months before. More scarred, for one
thing. And much more travelled. He had visited the
,Hublands, discovered the curious folkways of
many colourful peoples - invariably obtaining
more scars in the process - and had even, for a
never-to-be-forgotten few days, sailed on the 
legendary Dehydrated Ocean at the heart of the
incredibly dry desert known as the Great Nef. On a
colder and wetter sea he had seen floating 
mountains of ice. He had ridden on an imaginary
dragon. He had very nearly said the most powerful
spell on the disc. He 
had-there was definitely less horizon than there
ought to be.
'Hmm' Said Rincewind.
'I said nothing's worse than slavery,' said 
Twoflower. His mouth opened as the wizard flung
his bucket far out to sea and sat down heavily on
the waterlogged deck, his face a grey mask.
"look, I'm sorry I steered us into the reef, but this
boat doesn't seem to want to sink and we're bound
to strike land sooner or later,' said Twoflower
comfortingly. 'This current must go somewhere.'
'Look at the horizon,' Said Rincewind, in a
monotone.
Twoflower squinted.
"it looks all right,' he said after a while.
'Admittedly, there seems to be less than there
usually is, but-' 'That's because of the Rimfall,' said Rincewind.

'We're being carried over the edge of the world.'
There was a long silence, broken only by the
lapping of the waves as the foundering ship spun
slowly in the current. It was already quite strong.
'That'S probably why we hit that reef,' 
Rincewind added. "we got pulled off course during the
night.'
"Would you like something to eat?' asked 
Twoflower. He began to rummage through the bundle
that he had tied to the rail, out of the damp.
'Don't you understand?' snarled Rincewind. "We
are going over the Edge, 'godsdammit!'
"Can't we do anything about it?'

'No!'
"Then I can't see the sense in panicking,' said

Twoflower calmly.
"I knew we shouldn't have come this far
Edgewise,' complained Rincewind to the skye 'I
wish-'
"I wish I had my picture-box,' said Twoflower,

'but it's back on that slaver ship with the rest of the
Luggage and-'
"You won't need luggage where we're going,' said
Rincewind. He sagged, and stared moodily at a
distant whale that had carelessly strayed into the
rimward current and was now struggling against
it.
There was a line of white on the foreshortened
horizon, and the wizard fancied he could hear a
distant roaring.
"What happens after a ship goes over the 
Rim
fall?' said Twoflower.
"Who knows?'
"Well, in that case perhaps we'll just sail on
through space and land on another world.' A
faraway look came into the little man's eyes. "i'd
like that,' he said.
Rincewind snorted.
The sun rose in the sky, looking noticeably
bigger this close to the Edge. They stood with their
backs against the mast, busy with their own
thoughts. Every so often one or other would pick up
a bucket and do a bit of desultory bailing, for no
very intelligent reason.
The sea around them seemed to be getting
crowded. Rincewind noticed several tree trunks
keeping station with them, and just below the
surface the water was alive with fish of all Sorts. Of
the, current must be teeming with food washed "from the continents near the Hub. He
wondered what kind of life it would be, having to
keep swimming all the time to stay exactly in the
same place. Pretty similar to his own, he decided.
He spotted a small green frog which was paddling
desperately in the grip of the inexorable current. To
Twoflower's amazement he found a paddle and
carefully extended it towards the little amphibian,
which scrambled onto it gratefully. A moment later
a pair of jaws broke the water and snapped
impotently at the spot where it had been swimming.
The frog looked up at Rincewind from the cradle
of his hands, and then bit him thoughtfully on the
thumb. Twoflower giggled. Rincewind tucked the
frog away in a pocket, and pretended he hadn't
heard.
'All very humanitarian, but why?' said 
TwoflOWer. "it'll all be the same in an hour.'
'Because,' Said Rincewind vaguely, and did a bit
of bailing. Spray was being thrown up now and the
current waS sO Strong that waves were forming and
breaking all around them. It all seemed unnaturally
warm. There was a hot golden haze on the sea.
The roaring waS louder now. A squid bigger than
anything Rincewind had seen before broke the
sUrfaCe a few hundred yards away and thrashed
madly with itS tentacles before sinking away.
Something else that was large and fortunately
unidentifiable howled in the mist. A whole 
squadron of flying fish tumbled up in a cloud of 
rainbowedged droplets and managed to gain a few yards
before dropping back and being swept in an eddy.
They were running out of world. Rincewind
dropped hiS bucket and snatched at the mast as the
roaring, final end of everything raced towards
them.
"I must see this' said Twoflower, half falling
and half diving towards the prow.
Something hard and unyielding smacked into
the hull, which spun ninety degrees and came side
on to the invisible obstacle. Then it stopped suddenly 
and a wash of cold sea foam cascaded over
the' deck, so that for a few seconds Rincewind was
under several feet of boiling green water. He began
to scream and then the underwater world became
the deep clanging purple colour of fading consciousness
, because it was at about this point that
Rincewind started to drown.

He awoke with his mouth full of burning liquid
and, when he swallowed, the searing pain in his
throat jerked him into full consciousness.
The boards of a boat pressed into his back and
Twoflower was looking down at him with an
expression of deep concern. Rincewind groaned
and sat up.
This turned out to be a mistake. The edge of the
world was a few feet away.
Beyond it, at a level just below that of the lip of
the endless Rimfall, was something altogether
magical.

Some seventy miles away, and well beyond the tug
of the rim current, a scow with the red sails typical
of a freelance slaver drifted aimlessly through the
velvety twilight. The crew - such as remained 
were clustered on the foredeck, surrounding the
men working feverishly on the raft.
The captain, a thickset man who wore the 
elbowturbans typical of a Great Nef tribesman, was
much travelled and had seen many strange peoples
and curious things, many of which he had 
subsequently enslaved or stolen. He had begun his
career as a sailor on the Dehydrated Ocean in the
heart of the disc's driest desert. (Water on the disc
has an uncommon fourth state, caused by intense
magic combined with the strange desiccating effects
of octarine light') it dehydrates, leaving a silvery
mildue like free-flowing sand through which a
welldesigned hull can glide with ease. The 
Dehydrated Ocean is a strange place, but not so
strange as its fish.) The captain had never before
been really frightened. Now he was terrified.
'I can't hear anything,' he muttered to the fiRSt
mate. The mate peered into the gloom.

gPerhaps it fell overboard?' he suggested 
hopefully. As if in answer there came a furious 
pounding from the oar deck below their feet, and the
sound of splintering wood. The crewmen drew
together fearfully, brandishing axes and torches.
They probably wouldn't dare to use them, even if
the Monster came rushing towards them. Before its
terrible nature had 'been truly understood several
men had attacked it with axes, whereupon it had
turned aside from its single-minded searching of
the ship and had either chased them overboard or
had - eaten them? The captain was not quite
certain. The Thing looked like an ordinary wooden
sea chest. A bit larger than usual, maybe, but not
SUSpiciously so. But while it sometimes seemed to
contain things like .old socks and miscellaneous
luggage, at other times - and he shuddered - it
seemed to be, seemed to have . . . He tried not to
think about it. It was just that the men who Had
been drowned overboard had probably been more
fortunate than those it had caught. He tried not to
think about it. There had been teeth, teeth like
white wooden gravestones, and a tongue red as
mahogany . . .
He tried not to think about it. It didn't work.
But he thought bitterly about one thing. This
was going to be the last time he rescued ungrateful
drowning men in mysterious circumstances. Slavery
was better than Sharks, wasn't it? And then they
had escaped and when his sailors had investigated
their big chest - how had they appeared in the
middle of an untroubled ocean sitting on a big
chest, anyway? - and it had bitt . . . He tried not to
think about it again, but he found himself
wondering what would happen when the damned
thing realized that its owner wasn't on hoard any
longer . . .
"Raft's ready, lord,' said the first mate.
"Into the water with it,' shouted the captain, and
cGet aboard, and cFire the ship!'
After all, another ship wouldn't be too hard to
come by, he philosophised, but a man might have
to wait a long time in that Paradise the mullahs
advertised before he was granted another life. Let
the magical box eat lobsters.
Some pirates achieved immortality by great
deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved
immortality by amassing great wealth. But the
captain had long ago decided that he would, on the
whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.

"What the hell is that?' demanded Rincewind.
"It's beautiful,'  said Twoflower beatifically. '
"I'll decide about that when I know what it is,

said the wizard.
"It is the Rimbow,' said a voice immediately

behind his left ear, "And you are fortunate indeed to
be looking at it. From above, at any rate.' and
The voice was accompanied by a gust of cold and
fishy breath, Rincewind sat quite still.
"Twoflower?' he said.
"YeS?'
"If I turn around, what will I see?'
"His name is Tethis. He says he's a sea troll. This
is his boat. He rescued us,' explained Twoflower
'Will you look around now?'
cNot just at the moment,, thank you. So why

aren't we going over the Edge, then?' asked
rIncewind with glassy calmness.
"Because your boat hit the Circumfence,' said the

voice behind him (in tones that made Rincewind
imagine Submarine chasms and lurking Things in
coral reefs).
"the Circumfence?' he repeated.
'Yes. It runs along the edge of the world,' said the
unseen troll. Above the roar of the waterfall
Rincewind thought he could make out the splash of
oars. He hoped they were oars.
'Ah. You mean the circumference,' said 
Rincewind. "The circumference makes the edge of
things." "So does the Circumfence,' said the troll.

"He means this,' said Twoflower, pointing down
Rincewind's eyes followed the finger, dreading
what they might see . . .
Hubwards of the boat was a rope suspended a
few feet above the surface of the white water. The
boat was attached to it, moored yet mobile, by a
complicated arrangement of pulleys and little
wooden wheels. They ran along the rope as the
unseen rower propelled the craft along the very lip
of the Rimfall. That explained one mystery - but
what Supported the rope?
Rincewind peered along its length and saw a
stout wooden post sticking up out of the water a
few yards ahead. As he watched the boat neared it
and then passed it, the little wheels clacking neatly
around it in a groove obviously cut for the purpose.
Rincewind also noticed that smaller ropes hung
down from the main rope at intervals of a yard or
sO.
He turned back to Twoflower.
"I can see what it is,' he said, "But what is it?'

Twoflower shrugged. Behind Rincewind the sea
troll said, "Up ahead is my house. We will talk more
when we are there. Now I must row.'
Rincewind found that looking ahead meant that
he would have to turn and find out what a sea troll
actually looked like, and he wasn't sure he wanted
to do that yet. He looked at the Rimbow instead.
It hung in the mists a few lengths beyond the
edge of the world, appearing only at morning and
evening when the light of the Disc's little orbiting sun shone past the
massive bulk of Great A'tuin
the World Turtle and struck the Disc's magical
field at exactly the right angle.
A double rainbow corruscated into being. Close
into the lip of the Rimfall were the seven lesser
colours, sparkling and dancing in the spray of the
dying seas.
But they were pale in comparison to the wider
band that floated beyond them, not deigning to
share the same spectrum.
It was the King Colour, of which all the lesser
colours are merely partial and wishy-washy reflections
. It was octarine, the colour of magic. It was
alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the
undisputed pigment of the imagination, because
wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere
matter was a servant of the powers of the magical
mind. It was enchantment itself.
But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of
greenish-purple.

After a while a small speck on the rim of the world
resolved itself into a eyot or crag, so perilously
perched that the waters of the fall swirled around it
at the start of their long drop. A driftwood shanty
had been built on it, and Rincewind saw that the
top rope of the Circumfence climbed over the rocky
island on a number of iron stakes and actually
passed through the shack by a small round
window. He learned later that this was so that the
troll could be alerted to the arrival of any salvage
on his stretch of the Circumfence by means of a
series of small bronze bells, balanced delicately on
al'rOpea A'cif e floating stockade had been built out of

rerrSh timber on the hubward side of the island. It
contained one or two hulks and quite a large
amount of floating wood in the form of planks,
baulks and even whole natural tree trunks, some
still sporting green leaves. This close to the Edge
the disc's magical field was so intense that a hazy
corona flickered across everything as raw illusion
spontaneously discharged itself.
With a last few squeaky jerks the boat slid up
against a small driftwood jetty. As it grounded
itself and formed a circuit Rincewind felt all the
familiar senSations of a huge occult aura - oily,
bluish-tasting, and smelling of tin. All around
them pure, unffocused magic was sleeting 
soundlessly into the world.
The wizard and Twoflower scrambled onto the
planking and for the first time Rincewind saw the
troll.
It wasn't half so dreadful as he had imagined.
Umm, said his imagination after a while.
It wasn't that' the troll was horrifying. Instead of
the rotting, betentacled monstrosity he had been
expecting Rincewind found himself looking at a
rather Squat but not particularly ugly old man who
would quite easily have passed for normal on any
city street, always provided that other people on
the Street were used to seeing old men who were
apparently composed of water and very little else.
It was as if the ocean had decided to create life
without going through all that tedious business of
evolution, and had Simply formed a part of itself
into a biped and sent it walking squishily up the
beach. The troll was a pleasant translucent blue
colour. As Rincewind stared a small shoal of silver
fish flashed across its chest.
'It'sB rude to stare,' said the troll. Its mouth
opened with a little creSt of foam, and shut again in
exactly the same way that water closes over a
stone.
"Is it? Why?' asked Rincewind. How does he hold
himselb together, his mind screamed at him. Why doesn't he spill?

"If you will follow me to my house I will find you

food and a change of clothing,' said the troll
solemnly. He set off over the rocks without turning
to see if they would follow him. After all, where else
could they go? It was getting dark, and a chilly
damp breeze was blowing over the edge of the
world. Already the transient Rimbow had faded
and the mists above the waterfall were beginning
tO thin.

"Come on,' said Rincewind, grabbing Twoflower's

elbow. But the tourist didn't appear to want to
move.
"Come on,' the wizard repeated.
'When it gets really dark, do you think we'll be
able to look down and see Great A'tuin the World
Turtle?' asked Twoflower, staring at the rolling clouds.
"I hope not,' said Rincewind, "I really do. Now
let's go, shall we?'
Twoflower followed him reluctantly into the
shack. The troll had lit a couple of lamps and was
sitting comfortably in a rocking chair. He got to his
feet as they entered and poured two cups of a green
liquid from a tall pitcher. In the dim light he
appeared to phosphoresce, in the manner of warm
seas on velvety summer nights. Just to add a
baroque gloss to Rincewind's dull terror he seemed
to be several inches taller, too.
Most of the furniture in the room appeared to be
boxes.
cUh. Really great place you've got here,' said
Rincewind. "Ethnic.'
He reached for a cup and looked at the green pool
shimmering inside it. It'd better be drinkable. he
thought.' Because I'm going to drink it. He
swallowed. It was the same stuff Twoflower had given him
in the rowing boat but, at the time, his mind had
ignored it because there were more pressing
matters. Now it had the leisure to savour the taste.
Rincewind's mouth twisted. He whimpered a
little. One of his legs came up convulsively and
caught him painfully in the chest.
Twoflower swirled his own drink thoughtfully
while he considered the flavour.
"Ghlen Livid,' he said. "The fermented vul nut
drink they freeze-distil in my home country. A
certain smokey quality . . . Piquant. From the western
plantationS in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes? Next year's harvest, I
fancy, from the colour. May' I ask
how you came by it?'
(Plants on the disc, while including the categories
known commonly as annuals, which were sown
this year to come up later this year, rieanuals, sown
this year to grow next year, and perennials, sown
this year to grow until further notice, also included
a few rare re-annuals which, because of an unusual
four-dimenSional twist in their genes, could be
planted thiS year to come up last year. The Vul nut
vine was particularly exceptional in that it could
flourish as many as eight years prior to its seed
actually being sown. Vul nut wine was reputed to
give certain drinkers an insight into the future
which was, from the nut's point of view, the past.
Strange but true.)
"All things drift into the Circumfence in time,'
said the troll, gnomically, gently rocking in his
chair. 'My job iS to recover the flotsam. Timber, of
course, and ships. Barrels of wine. Bales of cloth.
You.'
Light dawned inside Rincewind's head.
'It's a net, isn't it? You've got a net right on the
edge of the Sea! '
"The circumfence,' nodded the troll. Ripples radiating
across his chest.
Rincewind looked out into the phosphorescent
darkness that surrounded the island, and grinned
inanely.
"Of course,' he said. "Amazing! You could sink
piles and attach it to reefs and - good grief The net
would have to be very Strong.'
"It is,' Said TethiS.
"It could be extended for a couple of miles, if you
found enough rocks and things,' said the wizard.
'Ten thousands of miles. I just patrol this length,'
"That's a third of the way around the disC!. '
Tethis sloshed a little as he nodded again. While
the two men helped themselves to some more of the
green wine, he told them about the Circumfence,
the great effort that had been made to build it, and
the ancient and wise Kingdom of Krull which had
constructed it several centuries before, and the
seven navies that patrolled it constantly to keep it
in repair and bring its salvage back to Krull, and
the manner in which Krull had become a land of
leisure ruled by the most learned seekers after
knowledge, and the way in which they sought
constantly to understand in every possible 
particular the wondrous complexity of the universe, and
the way in which sailors marooned on the 
Circumfence were turned into slaves, and usually had
their tongues cut out. After some interjections at
this point he spoke, in a friendly way, on the
futility of force, the impossibility of escaping from
the island except by boat to one of the other three
hundred and eighty isles that lay between the
island and Krull itself, or by leaping over the Edge
and the high merit of muteness in comparison to
for' example, death.
There was a pause. The muted night-roar of the
Rimfall only served to give the silence a heavier
texture.
the rocking chair started to creak again.
Tethis Seemed to have grown alarmingly during
the monologue. "there iS nothing personal in all this,' he added.

''I'too am' a Slave. If you try to overpower me I shall
have to kill you, of course, but I won't take any
particular pleasure in it.'
Rincewind looked at the shimmering fists that
rested lightly in the troll's lap. He suspected they
could strike with all the force of a tsunami.
"I don't think you understand,' explained 
Twoflower. "I am a citizen of the "golden Empire. I'm
sure Krull would not wish to incur the displeasure
of the Emperor' "How will the emperor know?' asked the troll.
'Do you think you're the first person from the
Empire who has ended up on the Circumfence?'
"I won't be a slave,' shouted Rincewind. "I'd - I'd
jump over the Edge first!' He was amazed at the
sound in his own voice.
cWould you, though?' asked the troll. The rocking
chair flicked back against the wall and one blue
arm caught the wizard around the waist. A moment
later the troll was striding out of the shack with
Rincewind gripped carelessly in one fist.
He did not stop until he came to the Rimward
edge of the island. Rincewind squealed.
"Stop that or I really will throw you over the
edge,' snapped the troll. 'i'm holding you. aren't I?
Look.'
Rincewind looked.
In front of him was a soft black night whose
mist-muted stars glowed peacefully. But his eyes
turned downwards, drawn by some irresistible
fascination.
It was midnight on the Disc and so, therefore, the
sun was far, far below, swinging slowly under
Great A'Tuin's vast and frosty plastron. 
Rincewind tried a last attempt to fix his gaze on the tips
of hiS boots, which were protruding over the rim of
the rock, but the sheer drop wrenched it away.
On either side of him two glittering curtains of
water hurtled towards infinity as the sea swept
around the island on its way to the long fall. 
a hundred yards below the wizard the largest sea
salmon he had ever seen flicked itself out of the
foam in a wild, jerky and ultimately hopeless leap.
Then it fell back, over and over, in the golden
underworld light.
Huge shadows grew out of that light like pillars
supporting the roof of the universe. Hundreds of
miles below him the wizard made out the shape of
something, the edge of 
something-Like those curious little pictures where the
silhouette of an ornate glass suddenly becomes the
outline of two faces, the scene beneath him flipped
into a whole, new, terrifying perspective. Because
down there was the head of an elephant as big as a
reasonably-sized continent. One mighty tusk cut
like a mountain against the golden light, trailing a
widening shadow towards the stars. The head was
slightly tilted, and a huge ruby eye might almost
have been a red super-giant that had managed to
shine at noonday.
Below the 
elephant-Rincewind swallowed and tried not to 
think-Below the elephant there was nothing but the
distant, painful disc of the sun. And, sweeping
slowly past it, was something that for all its 
city-sized scales, its crater-pocks, its lunar cragginess,
was indubitably a flipper.
'Shall I let go?' suggested the troll
'Gaah,' said Rincewind, straining backwards.
"I have lived here on the Edge for five years and I
have not had the courage,' boomed Tethis. 'Nor
have you, if I'm any judge.' He stepped back.
allowing Rincewind to fling himself onto the
ground.
twoflower strolled up to the rim and peered over.
'fantastic,' he said. 'If only I had my picture 
box.'
what else is down there? I mean, if you
fell off, what would you see? '

,Tethis sat down on an outcrop. High over the
disc the moon came out from behind a cloud , giving
him the appearance of ice.
"My home is down there, perhaps,' he said
slowly. 'Beyond your silly elephants and that
ridiculous turtle. A real world. Sometimes I come
out here and look, but somehow I can never bring
myselfto take that extra step . . . A real world, with
real people. I have wives and little ones, somewhere
down there . . .' He stopped, and blew his nose. "You
soon learn what you're made of, here on the Edge.'
.Stop saying that. Please,' moaned Rincewind
He turned over and saw Twoflower standing
unconcernedly at the very lip of the rock. "Gaah,
he said, and tried to burrow into the stone.
"There's another world down there?' said 
Twoflower, peering'over. cWhere, exactly?"
The troll waved an arm vaguely. cSomewhere,' he
Said. "That's all I know. It was quite a small world.
Meetly blue.'
cSo why are you here?' said Twoflower.
'isn't it obvious?' snapped the troll. "I fell off the
edge! '

He told them of the world of Bathys, somewhere
among the Stars, where the seafolk had built a
number of thriving civilisations in the three large
OCeans that sprawled across its disc. He had been a
meatman, one of the caste which earned a perilous
living in large, sail-powered land yachts that
ventured far out to land and hunted the shoals of
deer and buffalo that abounded in the 
stormhaunted continents. His particular yacht had been
blown into uncharted lands by a freak gale. The
C(Yet of the crew had taken the yacht's little rowing
trolley and had struck out for a distant lake, but
Tethis, as master, had elected to remain with his
Vessel. The storm had carried it right over the
rocky rim of the world, smashing it to matchwood
in the process.
'At first I fell,' said Tethis, "but falling isn't so
bad, you know. It's only the landing that hurts,
and there was nothing below me. As I fell I saw the
world spin off into space until it was lost against
the stars.'
"What happened next?' said Twoflower 
breathlessly, glancing towards the misty universe.
"I froze solid,' said Tethis simply. "Fortunately it
is something my race can survive. But I thawed out
occasionally when I passed near other worlds.
There was one, I think it was the one with what, I
thought was this strange ring of mountains around
it that turned out to be the biggest dragon you
could ever imagine, covered in snow and glaciers
and holding its tail in its mouth - well, I came
within a few leagues of that, I shot over the
landscape like a comet, in fact, and then I was off
again. Then there was a time I woke up and there
was your world coming at me like a custard pie
thrown by the Creator and, well, I landed in the sea
not far from the Circumfence widdershins of Krull.
All sorts of creatures get washed up against the
Fence, and at the time they were looking for slaves
to man the way stations, and I ended up here.' He
stopped and stared intently at rinCeWind. "every
night I come out here and look down.' he finished
"and I never jump. Courage is hard to come by. here

on the Edge.'
Rincewind began to crawl determinedly towards
the shack. He gave a little scream as the troll
picked him up, not unkindly, and set him on his
feet.
"Amazing,' said 'Fwoflower, and leaned further
out over the Edge. 'There are lots of other worlds
out there?'

'Quite a number, I imagine,' said the troll.

'I suppose one could contrive some sort of, I don't
know, some sort of a thing that could preserve one
against the cold,' said the little man thoughtfully.
'Some sort of a ship that one could sail over the
Edge and sail to far-off worlds, too. I wonder . . .'

'Don't even think about it!' moaned Rincewind.

'Stop talking like that, do you hear?'

'They all talk like that in Krull,' said Tethis.

'Those with tongues, of course,' he added.

'Are you awake?'

Twoflower snored on. Rincewind jabbed him
viciously in the ribs.

'I said, are you awake?' he snarled.

'Scrdfngh . . .'

'We've got to get out of here before this salvage
fleet comes!'

The dishwater light of dawn oozed through the
shack's one window, slopping across the piles of
salvaged boxes and bundles that were strewn
around the interior. Twoflower grunted again and
tried to burrow into the pile of furs and blankets
that Tethis had given them.

'Look, there's all kinds of weapons and stuff in
here,' said Rincewind. 'He's gone out somewhere.
When he comes back we could overpower him and and 
well, then we can think of something. How
about it?'

'That doesn't sound like a very good idea,' said
Twoflower 'Anyhow, it's a bit ungracious isn't it?'

'Tough buns,' snapped Rincewind. 'This is a
rough universe.'

He rummaged through the piles around the walls
and selected a heavy, wavy-bladed scimitar that
had probably been some pirate's pride and joy. It
looked the sort of weapon that relied as much on its

weight as its edge to cause damage. He raised it
awkwardly.

'Would he leave that sort of thing around if it
could hurt him?' Twoflower wondered aloud.

Rincewind ignored him and took up a position
beside the door. When it opened some ten minutes
later he moved unhesitatingly, swinging it across
the opening at what he judged was the troll's head
height. It swished harmlessly through nothing at
all and struck the doorpost, jerking him off his feet
and on to the floor.

There was a sigh above him. He looked up into
Tethis' face, which was shaking sadly from side to
side.

'It wouldn't have harmed me,' said the troll,'but
nevertheless I am hurt. Deeply hurt.' He reached
over the wizard and jerked the sword out of the
wood. With no apparent effort he bent its blade into
a circle and sent it bowling away over the rocks
until it hit a stone and sprang, still spinning, in a
silver arc that ended in the mists forming over the
Rimfall.

'Very deeply hurt'' he concluded. He reached
down beside the door and tossed a sack towards
Twoflower.

'It's the carcase of a deer that is just about how you
humans like it, and a few lobsters, and a sea salmon.
The Circumfence provides,' he said casually.

He looked hard at the tourist, and then down
again at Rincewind.

'What are you staring at?' he said.

'It's just that-' said Twoflower.

'-compared to last night-' said Rincewind.

'You're so small,' finished Twoflower.

'I see, said the troll carefully.'Personal remarks
now.' He drew himself up to his full height, which
was currently about four feet. 'Just because I'm
made of water doesn't mean I'm made of wood, you
know.'

'I'm sorry,' said Twoflower, climbing hastily out
of the furs.

'You're made of dirt,' said the troll,'but I didn't
pass comments about things you can't help, did I?
Oh, no. We can't help the way the Creator made us,
that's my view. but if you must know, your moon
here is rather more powerful than the ones around
my own world.'

"the moon?' said Twoflower.'I don't under-'

'If I've got to spell it out,' said the troll. testily,
'I'm suffering from chronic tides.'

A bell jangled in the darkness of the shack.
Tethis strode across the creaking floor to the

complicated devices of levers, strings and bells
that was mounted on the Circumfence's topmost
strand where it passed through the hut.

The bell rang again, and then started to clang
away in an odd jerky rhythm for several minutes.
The troll stood with his ear pressed close to it.

When it stopped he turned slowly and looked at
them with a worried frown.

'You're more important than I thought,' he said.
'You're not to wait for the salvage fleet. You're to be
collected by a flyer. That's what they say in Krull.'
He shrugged. 'And I hadn't even sent a message
that you're here, yet. Someone's been drinking vul
nut wine again.'

He picked up a large mallet that hung on a pillar
beside the bell and used it to tap out a brief carillon.

'That'll be passed from lengthman to lengthman
all the way back to Krull,' he said. 'Marvellous
really, isn't it?'

It came speeding across the sea, floating a manlength
above it, but still leaving a foaming wake as
whatever power that held it up smacked brutally
into the water. Rincewind knew what power held it
up. He was, he would be the first to admit, a
coward, an incompetent, and not even very good at
being a failure; but he was still a wizard of sorts, he
knew one of the Eight Great Spells, he would be
claimed by Death himself when he died' and he
recognized really finely honed magic when he saw
it.

The lens skimming towards the island was
perhaps twenty feet across, and totally transparent
Sitting around its circumference were a large
number of black-robed men, each one strapped
securely to the disc by a leather harness and each
one staring down at the waves with an expression
so tormented, so agonising, that the transparent
disc seemed to be ringed with gargoyles.

Rincewind sighed with relief. This was such an
unusual sound that it made Twoflower take his eyes
off the approaching disc and turn them on him.

'We're important, no lie,' explained Rincewind.
"They wouldn't be wasting all that magic on a
couple of potential slaves.' He grinned.

'What is it?' said Twoflower.

'Well, the disc itself would have been created by
Fresnel's Wonderful Concentrator,' said Rincewind,
authoritatively. 'That calls for many rare
and unstable ingredients, such as demon's breath
and so forth, and it takes at least eight fourthgrade
wizards a week to envision. Then there's
those wizards on it, who must all be gifted hydrophobes-'

'
You mean they hate water?' said Twoflower.

'NO, that wouldn't work,' said Rincewind.'Hate
is an attracting force, just like love. They really
loathe it, the very idea of it revolts them. A really
good hydrophobe has to be trained on debydrated
water from birth. I mean, that costs a fortune in
magic alone. But they make great weather magicians.
Rain clouds just give up and go away.'

'It sounds terrible,' said the water troll behind
them.

'And they all die young,' said Rincewind,
ignoring him. 'They just can't live with themselves.'

'
Sometimes I think a man could wander across
the disc all his life and not see everything there is
to see,' said Twoflower. 'And now it seems there are
lots of other worlds as well. When I think I might
die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see
it makes me feel,' he paused, then added, 'well,
humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course.'

The flyer halted a few yards hubward of the
island, throwing up a sheet of spray. It hung there,
spinning slowly. A hooded figure standing by the
stubby pillar at the exact centre of the lens
beckoned to them.

'You'd better wade out,' said the troll. 'It doesn't
do to keep them waiting. It has been nice to make
your acquaintance.' He shook them both, wetly, by
the hand. As he waded out a little way with them
the two nearest loathers on the lens shied away
with expressions of extreme disgust.

The hooded figure reached down with one hand
and released a rope ladder. In its other hand it held
a silver rod, which had about it the unmistakable
air of something designed for killing people.
Rincewind's first impression was reinforced when
the figure raised the stick and waved it carelessly
towards the shore. A section of rock vanished,
leaving a small grey haze of nothingness.

'That's so you don't think I'm afraid to use it,'
said the figure.

'Don't think you're afraid?' said Rincewind. The
hooded figure snorted.

'We know all about you, Rincewind the magician.
You are a man of great cunning and artifice. You
laugh in the face of Death. Your affected air of
craven cowardice does not fool me.'

It fooled Rincewind. 'I-' he began, and paled as
the nothingness-stick was turned towards him. 'I

see you know all about me,' he finished weakly,
and sat down heavily on the slippery surface. He
and Twoflower, under instructions from the hooded
commander, strapped themselves down to rings set
in the transparent disc.

'If you make the merest suggestion of weaving a
spell,' said the darkness under the hood, 'you die.
Third quadrant reconcile, ninth quadrant redouble,
forward all!'

A wall of water shot into the air behind
Rincewind and the disc jerked suddenly. The
dreadful presence of the sea troll had probably
concentrated the hydrophobes' minds wonderfully,
because it then rose at a very steep angle and
didn't begin level flight until it was a dozen
fathoms above the waves. Rincewind glanced
down through the transparent surface and wished
he hadn't.

'Well, off again then,' said Twoflower cheerfully.
He turned and waved at the troll, now no more
than a speck on the edge of the world.

Rincewind glared at him. 'Doesn't anything
ever worry you?' he asked.

'We're still alive; aren't we?' asked Twoflower.
'And you yourself said they wouldn't be going to all
this trouble if we were just going to be slaves. I
expect Tethis was exaggerating. I expect it's all a
misunderstanding. I expect we'll be sent home.
After we've seen Krull, of course. And I must say it
all sounds fascinating.'

'Oh yes,' said Rincewind, in a hollow voice.
'Fascinating.' He was thinking: I've seen excitement,
and I've seen boredom. And boredom was
best.

Had either of them happened to look down at
that moment they would have noticed a strange
v-shaped wave surging through the water far
below them, its apex pointing directly at Tethis'
island. But they weren't looking. The twenty-four

hydrophobic magicians were looking, but to them
it was just another piece of dreadfulness, not really
any different from the liquid horror around it. They
were probably right.

Sometime before all this the blazing pirate ship
had hissed under the waves and started the long
slow slide towards the distant ooze. It was more
distant than average, because directly under the
stricken keel was the Gorunna Trench - a chasm in
the Disc's surface that was so black, so deep and so
reputedly evil that even the krakens went there
fearfully, and in pairs. In less reputedly evil
chasms the fish went about with natural lights on
their heads and on the whole managed quite well.
In Gorunna they left them unlit and, insofar as it is
possible for something without legs to creep, they
crept; they tended to bump into things, too.
Horrible things.

The water around the ship turned from green to
purple, from purple to black, from black to a
darkness so complete that blackness itself seemed
merely grey by comparison. Most of its timbers had
already been crushed into splinters under the
intense pressure.

It spiralled past groves of nightmare polyps and
drifting forests of seaweed which glowed with
faint, diseased colours. Things brushed it briefly
with soft, cold tentacles as they darted away into
the freezing silence.

Something rose up from the murk and ate it in
one mouthful.

Some time later the islanders on a little rimward
atoll were amazed to find, washed into their little
local lagoon, the wave-rocked corpse of a hideous
sea monster, all beaks, eyes and tentacles. They
were further astonished at its size, since it was
rather larger than their village. But their surprise
was tiny compared to the huge, stricken expression

on the face of the dead monster, which appeared to
have been trampled to death.

Somewhat further rimward of the atoll a couple
of little boats, trolling a net for the ferocious freeswimming
oysters which abounded in those seas,
caught something that dragged both vessels for
several miles before one captain had the presence
of mind to sever the lines.

But even his bewilderment was as nothing
compared to that of the islanders on the last atoll
in the archipelago. During the following night they
were awakened by a terrific crashing and splintering
noise coming from their minute jungle; when
some of the bolder spirits went to investigate in the
morning they found that the trees had been
smashed in a broad swathe that started on the
hubmost shore of the atoll and made a line of total
destruction pointing precisely Edgewise, littered
with broken lianas, crushed bushes and a few
bewildered and angry oysters.

They were high enough now to see the wide curve
of the Rim sweeping away from them, lapped by
the fluffy clouds that mercifully hid the waterfall
for most of the time. From up here the sea, a deep
blue dappled with cloud-shadows, looked almost
inviting. Rincewind shuddered.

'Excuse me,' he said. The hooded figure turned
from its contemplation of the distant haze and
raised its wand threateningly.

'I don't want to use this,' it said.

'You don't?' said Rincewind.

'What is it, anyway?' said Twoflower.

'Ajandurah's Wand of Utter Negativity,' said
Rincewind. 'And I wish you'd stop waving it about.
It might go off,' he added, nodding at the wand's
glittering point. 'I mean, it's all very flattering, all

this magic being used just for our benefit, but  

there's no need to go quite that far. And-'

'Shut up.' The figure reached up and pulled back
its hood, revealing itself to be a most unusually
tinted young woman. Her skin was black. Not the
dark brown of Urabewe, or the polished blue-black
of monsoon-haunted Klatch, but the deep black of
midnight at the bottom of a cave. Her hair and
eyebrows were the colour of moonlight. There was
the same pale sheen around her lips. She looked
about fifteen, and very frightened.

Rincewind couldn't help noticing that the hand
holding the wand was shaking, this was because a
piece of sudden death, wobbling uncertainly a-mere
five feet from your nose, is very hard to miss. It
dawned on him - very slowly, because it was a
completely new sensation - that someone in the
world was frightened of him. The complete reverse
was so often the case that he had come to think of it
as a kind of natural law.

'What is your name?' he said, as reassuringly as
he could manage. She might be frightened, but she
did have the wand. If I had a wand like that, he
thought, I wouldn't be frightened of anything. So
what in Creation can she imagine I could do?

'My name is immaterial,' she said.

'That's a pretty name,' said Rincewind. 'Where

are you taking us, and why? I can't see any harm
in your telling us.'

'You are being brought to Krull,' said the girl.
'And don't mock me, hublander. Else I'll use the
wand. I must bring you in alive, but no-one said
anything about bringing you in whole. My name is
Marchesa, and I am a wizard of the fifth level. Do
you understand?'

'Well, since you know all about me then you
know that I never even made it to Neophyte,' said
Rincewind. 'I'm not even a wizard, really.' He
caught Twoflower's astonished expression, and
added hastily,'Just a wizard of sorts.'

'You can't do magic because one of the Eight

Great Spells is indelibly lodged in your mind,' said
Marchesa, shifting her balance gracefully as the
great lens described a wide arc over the sea. 'That's
why you were thrown out of Unseen University.
We know.'

'But you said just now that he was a magician of
great cunning and artifice,' protested Twoflower.

'Yes, because anyone who survives all that he
has survived - most of which was brought on
himself by his tendency to think of himself as a
wizard - well, he must be some kind of a magician,'
said Marchesa. 'I warn you, Rincewind. If you give
me the merest suspicion that you are intoning the
Great Spell I really will kill you.' She scowled at
him nervously.

'Seems to me your best course would be to just,
you know, drop us off somewhere,' said Rincewind.

'I mean, thanks for rescuing us and everything, so  ,
if you'd just let us get on with leading our lives I'm   '

sure we'd all-'

'I hope you're not proposing to enslave us,' said

Twoflower.  '
Marchesa looked genuinely shocked. 'Certainly  
not! Whatever could have given you that idea?
Your lives in Krull will be rich, full and comfortable-'

'
Oh, good,' said Rincewind.

'-just not very long.'

Krull turned out to be a large island, quite
mountainous and heavily wooded, with pleasant
white buildings visible here and there among the
trees. The land sloped gradually up towards the
rim, so that the highest point in Krull in fact
slightly overhung the Edge. Here the Krullians
had built their major city, also called Krull, and
since so much of their building material had been
salvaged from the Circumfence the houses of Krull
had a decidedly nautical persuasion.
To put it bluntly, entire ships had been mortic
artfully together and converted into buildings,
Triremes, chows and caravels protruded at strange
angles from the general wooden chaos. Painted
figureheads and hublandish dragonprows
reminded the citizens of Krull that their good
fortune stemmed from the sea; barquentines and
carracks lent a distinctive shape to the larger
buildings. And so the city rose tier on tier between
the blue-green ocean of the Disc and the soft clo
sea of the Edge, the eight colours of the Rimbow
reflected in every window and in the many telescope 
lenses of the city's multitude of astronomers.

'It's absolutely awful,' said Rincewind gloomily

The lens was approaching now along the very I
of the rimfall. The island not only got higher as it
neared the Edge. It got narrower too, so that the
lens was able to remain over water until it was very
near the city. The parapet along the edgewise cliff
was dotted with gantries projecting into nothingness
. The lens glided smoothly towards one of
them and docked with it as smoothly as a boat
might glide up to a quay. Four guards, with the
same moonlight hair and nightblack faces as
Marchesa, were waiting. They did not appear to be
armed, but as Twoflower and Rincewind stumbled
on to the parapet they were each grabbed by the
arms and held quite firmly enough for any thought"
of escape to be instantly dismissed.

Then Marchesa and the watching hydrophobic
wizards were quickly left behind and the guards
and their prisoners set off briskly along a lane that
wound between the ship-houses. Soon it lead
downwards, into what turned out to be a palace of
some sort, half-hewn out of the rock of the clif
itself. Rincewind was vaguely aware of brightly-lit
tunnels, and courtyards open to the distant sky. a
few elderly men, their robes covered in mysterious
occult symbols, stood aside and watched with

interest as the sextet passed. Several times Rincewind
noticed hydrophobes - their ingrained
expressions of self-revulsion at their own body-fluids
was distinctive- and here and there trudging
men who could only be slaves. He didn't have
much time to reflect on all this before a door was
opened ahead of them and they were pushed,
gently but firmly, into a room. Then the door
slammed behind them.

Rincewind and Twoflower regained their balance
and stared around the room in which they
now found themselves.

'Gosh,' said Twoflower ineffectually, after a
pause during which he had tried unsuccessfully to
find a better word.

'This is a prison cell?' wondered Rincewind
aloud.

'All that gold and silk and stuff,' Twoflower
added. 'I've never seen anything like it!'

In the centre of the richly-decorated room, on a
carpet that was so deep and furry that Rincewind
trod on it gingerly lest it be some kind of shaggy,
floor-loving beast, was a long gleaming table laden
with food. Most were fish dishes, including the
biggest and most ornately-prepared lobster Rincewind
had ever seen, but there were also plenty of
bowls and platters piled with strange creations
that he had never seen before. He reached out
cautiously and picked up some sort of purple fruit
crusted with green crystals.

'Candied sea urchin,' said a cracked, cheerful
voice behind him. 'A great delicacy.'

He dropped it quickly and turned around. An old
man had stepped out from behind the heavy
curtains. He was tall, thin and looked almost
benign compared to some of the faces Rincewind
had seen recently.

'The puree of sea cucumbers is very good too,'
said the face, conversationally. 'Those little green

bits are baby starfish.'

'Thank you for telling me,' said Rincewind
weakly.

'Actually, they're rather good,' said Twoflower,
his mouth full. 'I thought you liked seafood?'

'Yes, I thought I did,' said Rincewind. 'What's
this wine- crushed octopus eyeballs?'

'Sea "rape,' said the old man.

'Great,' said Rincewind, and swallowed a glassful. '
Not bad. A bit salty, maybe.'

'Sea grape is a kind of small jellyfish,' explained
the stranger. 'And now I really think I should
introduce myself. Why has your friend gone that
strange colour?'

'Culture shock, I imagine,' said Twoflower. 'What
did you say your name was?'

'I didn't. It's Garhartra. I'm the Guestmaster,
you see. It is my pleasant task to make sure that
your stay here is as delightful as possible.' He
bowed. 'If there is anything you want you have
only to say.'

Twoflower sat down on an ornate mother-of-pearl
chair with a glass of oily wine in one hand
and a crystallised squid in the other. He frowned.

'I think I've missed something along the way,' he
said. 'First we were told we were going to be
slaves-'

'A base canard!' interrupted Garhartra.

'What's a canard?' said Twoflower.

'I think it's a kind of duck,' said Rincewind from
the far end of the long table. 'Are these biscuits
made of something really nauseating, do you
suppose?'

'-and then we were rescued at great magical
expense-'

'They're made of pressed seaweed,' snapped the
Guestmaster.

'-but then we're threatened, also at a vast
expenditure of magic-'

'Yes, I thought it would be something like
seaweed,' agreed Rincewind. 'They certainly taste
like seaweed would taste if anyone was masochistic
enough to eat seaweed.'

'-and then we're manhandled by guards and
thrown in here-'

'Pushed gently,' corrected Garhartra.

'-which turned out to be this amazingly rich
room and there's all this food and a man saying
he's devoting his life to making us happy,' Twoflower
concluded. 'What I'm getting at is this sort
of lack of consistency.'

'Yar,' said Rincewind. 'What he means is, are
you about to start being generally unpleasant
again? Is this just a break for lunch?'

Garhartra held up his hands reassuringly.

'Please, please,' he protested. 'It was just necessary
to get you here as soon as possible. We
certainly do not want to enslave you. Please be
reassured on that score.'

'Well, fine,' said Rincewind.

'Yes, you will in fact be sacrificed,' Garhartra
continued placidly.

'Sacrificed? You're going to kill us?' shouted the
wizard.

'Kill? Yes, of course. Certainly! It would hardly
be a sacrifice if we didn't, would it? But don't worry
- it'll be comparatively painless.'

'Comparatively? Compared to what?' said Rincewind.
He picked up a tall green bottle that was full
of sea grape jellyfish wine and hurled it hard at the
Guestmaster, who flung up a hand as if to protect
himself.

There was a crackle of octarine flame from his
fingers and the air suddenly took on the thick,
greasy feel that indicated a powerful magical
discharge. The flung bottle slowed and then stopped
in mid-air, rotating gently.

At the same time an invisible force picked

Rincewind up and hurled him down the length of
the room, pinning him awkwardly halfway up the
far wall with no breath left in his body. He hung
there with his mouth open in rage and astonishment.

Garhartra lowered his hand and brushed it
slowly on his robe

'I didn't enjoy doing that, you know,' he said.

'I could tell,' muttered Rincewind.

'but what do you want to sacrifice us for?' asked

Twoflower.'You hardly know us!'

'That's rather the point, isn't it? It's not very
good manners to sacrifice a friend. Besides, you
were, um, specified. I don't know a lot about the
god in question, but He was quite clear on that
point. Look, I must be running along now. So much
to organise, you know how it is,' the Guestmaster
opened the door, and then peered back around it.
'Please make yourselves comfortable, and don't
worry.'

'But you haven't actually told us anything!'
wailed Twoflower.

'It's not really worth it, is it? What with you
being sacrificed in the morning,' said Garhartra
'it's hardly worth the bother of knowing, really.
Sleep well. Comparatively well, anyway.'

He shut the door. A brief octarine flicker of
balefire around it suggested that it had now been
sealed beyond the skills of any earthly locksmith.

Gling, clang, tang went the bells along the Circumfence
in the moonlit, rimfall-roaring night.

Terton, lengthman of the 40th Length, hadn't
heard such a clashing since the night a giant
kraken had been swept into the Fence five years
ago. He leaned out of his hut, which for the lack of
any convenient eyot on this Length had been built
on wooden piles driven into the sea bed, and stared
into the darkness. Once or twice he thought he

could see movement, far off. Strictly speaking, he
should row out to see what was causing the din
But here in the clammy darkness it didn't seem like
an astoundingly good idea, so he slammed the
door, wrapped some sacking around the madly
jangling bells, and tried to get back to sleep.

That didn't work, because even the top strand of
the Fence was thrumming now, as if something big
and heavy was bouncing on it. After staring at the
ceiling for a few minutes, and trying hard not to
think of great long tentacles and pond-sized eyes,
Terton blew out the lantern and opened the door a
crack.

Something was coming along the Fence, in giant
loping bounds that covered metres at a time. It
loomed up at him and for a moment Terton saw
something rectangular, multi-legged, shaggy with
seaweed and - although it had absolutely no
features from which he could have deduced this - it
was also very angry indeed.

The hut was smashed to fragments as the
monster charged through it, although Terton
survived by clinging to the Circumfence; some
weeks later he was picked up by a returning
salvage fleet, subsequently escaped from Krull on a
hijacked lens (having developed hydrophobia to an
astonishing degree) and after a number of adventures
eventually found his way to the Great Nef, an
area of the Disc so dry that it actually has negative
rainfall, which he nevertheless considered uncomfortably
damp.

'Have you tried the door?'

'Yes,' said Twoflower. 'And it isn't any less
locked than it was last time you asked. There's the
window, though.'

'A great way of escape,' muttered Rincewind,
from his perch halfway up the wall. 'You said it
looks out over the Edge. Just step out, eh, and

plunge through space and maybe freeze solid or hit
some other world at incredible speeds or plunge
wildly into the burning heart of a sun?'

'Worth a try,' said Twoflower. 'Want a seaweed
biscuit?'

'No!'

'When are you coming down?'

Rincewind snarled. This was partly in embarrassment.
Garhartra's spell had been the little-used
and hard-to-master Atavarr's Personal Gravitational
Upset, the practical result of which was
that until it wore off Rincewind's body was
convinced that'down' lay at ninety degrees to that
direction normally accepted as of a downward
persuasion by the majority of the Disc's inhabitants.
He was in fact standing on the wall.

Meanwhile the flung bottle hung supportless in
the air a few yards away. In its case time had well,
not actually been stopped, but had been
slowed by several orders of magnitude, and its
trajectory had so far occupied several hours and a
couple of inches as far as Twoflower and Rincewind
were concerned. The glass gleamed in the
moonlight. Rincewind sighed and tried to make
himself comfortable on the wall.

'Why don't you ever worry?' he demanded
petulantly. 'Here we are, going to be sacrificed to
some god or other in the morning, and you just sit
there eating barnacle canapes.'

'I expect something will turn up,' said Twoflower.

'I mean, it's not as if we know why we're going to
be killed,' the wizard went on.

You'd like to, would you?

'Did you say that?' asked Rincewind.

'Say what?

Twoflower gave him a worried look.

'I'm Twoflower,'he said.'Surely you remember?'

Rincewind put his head in his hands.

'It's happened at last,' he moaned.'I'm going out
of my mind.'

Good idea said the voice. It's getting pretty
crowded in here

The spell pinning Rincewind to the wall vanished
with a faint 'pop'. He fell forward and landed in a
heap on the floor.

Careful- you nearly squashed me

Rincewind struggled to his elbows and reached
into the pocket of his robe. When he withdrew his
hand the green frog was sitting on it, its eyes oddly
luminous in the half-light.

'You?' said Rincewind.

Put me down on the floor and stand back The
frog blinked.

The wizard did so, and dragged a bewildered
Twoflower out of the way.

The room darkened. There was a windy, roaring
sound. Streamers of green, purple and octarine
cloud appeared out of nowhere and began to spiral
rapidly towards the recumbent amphibian, shedding
small bolts of lightning as they whirled. Soon
the frog was lost in a golden haze which began to
elongate upwards, filling the room with a warm
yellow light. Within it was a darker, indistinct
shape, which wavered and changed even as they
watched. And all the time there was the high,
brain-curdling whine of a huge magical field . . .

As suddenly as it had appeared, the magical
tornado vanished. And there, occupying the space
where the frog had been, was a frog.

'Fantastic,' said Rincewind.

The frog gazed at him reproachfully.

'Really amazing,' said Rincewind sourly.'A frog
magically transformed into a frog. Wondrous.'

'Turn around,' said a voice behind them. It was a
soft, feminine voice, almost an inviting voice, the
sort of voice you could have a few drinks with, but
it was coming from a spot where there oughtn't to
be a voice at all. They managed to turn without
really moving, like a couple of statues revolving on
plinths.

There was a woman standing in the pre-dawn
light. She looked - she was - she had a - in point of
actual fact she . . .

Later Rincewind and Twoflower couldn't quite
agree on any single fact about her, except that she
had appeared to be beautiful (precisely what
physical features made her beautiful they could
not, definitively, state) and that she had green
eyes. Not the pale green of ordinary eyes, eitherthese
were the green of fresh emeralds and as
iridescent as a dragonfly. And one of the few
genuinely magical facts that Rincewind knew was
that no god or goddess, contrary and volatile as
they might be in all other respects, could change

the colour or nature of their eyes . . .

'L-'he began. She raised a hand.

'You know that if you say my name I must
depart,' she hissed. 'Surely you recall that I am the
one goddess who comes only when not invoked?'

'Uh. Yes, I suppose I do,' croaked the wizard,
trying not to look at the eyes. 'You're the one they
call the Lady?'

'Yes.'

'Are you a goddess then?' said Twoflower
excitedly.'I've always wanted to meet one.'

Rincewind tensed, waiting for the explosion of
rage. Instead, the Lady merely smiled.

'Your friend the wizard should introduce us,' she
said.

Rincewind coughed. 'Uh, yar,' he said. 'This is
Twoflower, Lady, he's a tourist-'

'-I have attended him on a number of occasions-'

'and, Twoflower, this is the Lady. Just the
Lady, right? Nothing else. Don't try and give her
any other name, okay?' he went on desperatelY, his
eyes darting meaningful glances that were totally
lost on the little man.

Rincewind shivered. He was not, of course, an
atheist; on the Disc the gods dealt severely with
atheists. On the few occasions when he had some
spare change he had always made a point of
dropping a few coppers into a temple coffer
somewhere, on the principle that a man needed all
the friends he could get. But usually he didn't
bother the Gods, and he hoped the Gods wouldn't
bother him. Life was quite complicated enough.

There were two gods, however, who were really
terrifying. The rest of the gods were usually only
sort of large-scale humans, fond of wine and war
and whoring. But Fate and the Lady were chilling.

In the Gods' Quarter, in Ankh-Morpork, Fate
had a small, heavy, leaden temple, where hollowey-ed
and gaunt worshippers met on dark nights for
their predestined -and fairly pointless rites. There
were no temples at all to the Lady, although she
was arguably the most powerful goddess in the
entire history of Creation. A few of the more daring
members of the Gamblers' Guild had once experimented
with a form of worship, in the deepest
cellars of Guild headquarters, and had all died of
penury, murder or just Death within the week. She
was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those
who sought her never found her, yet she was
known to come to the aid of those in greatest need.
And, then again, sometimes she didn't. She was
like that. She didn't like the clicking of rosaries,
but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man
knew what She looked like, although there were
many times when a man who was gambling his
life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand
he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of

course, sometimes he didn't. Among all the gods
she was at one and the same time the most courted
and the most cursed.

'We don't have gods where I come from,' said
Twoflower.

'You do, you know,' said the Lady.'Everyone has
gods. You just don't think they're gods.'

Rincewind shook himself mentally.

'look,' he said. 'I don't want to sound impatient,
but in a few minutes some people are going to come
through that door and take us away and kill us.'

'Yes,' said the Lady.

'I suppose you wouldn't tell us why?' said
Twoflower.

'Yes,' said the Lady. 'The Krullians intend to
launch a bronze vessel over the edge of the Disc.
Their prime purpose is to learn the sex of A'tuin the
World Turtle.'

'Seems rather pointless,' said Rincewind.

'No. Consider. One day Great A'tuin may
encounter another member of the species chelys
galactica, somewhere in the vast night in which we
move. Will they fight? Will they mate? A little
imagination will show you that the sex of Great
A'tuin could be very important to us. At least, so
the Krullians say.'

Rincewind tried not to think of World Turtles

mating. It wasn't completely easy.
!'SO,' continued the goddess, 'they intend to

launch this ship of space, with two voyagers
aboard. It will be the culmination of decades of
research. It will also be very dangerous for the
travellers. And so, in an attempt to reduce the
risks, the Arch-astronomer of Krull has bargained
with Fate to sacrifice two men at the moment of
launch. Fate, in His turn, has agreed to smile on
the space ship. A neat barter, is it not?'

'And we're the sacrifices,' said Rincewind.

'Yes.'

'I thought Fate didn't go in for that sort of
bargaining. I thought Fate was implacable,' said
Rincewind.

'Normally, yes. But you two have been thorns in
his side for some time. He specified that the
sacrifices should be you. He allowed you to escape
from the pirates. He allowed you to drift into the
Circumfence. Fate can be one mean god at times.'

There was a pause. The frog sighed and wandered
off under the table.

'But you can help us?' prompted Twoflower.

'You amuse me,' said the Lady. 'I have a
sentimental streak. You'd know that, if you were
gamblers. So for a little while I rode in a frog's
mind and you kindly rescued me, for, as we all
know, no-one likes to see pathetic and helpless
creatures swept to their death.'

'Thank you,' said Rincewind.

'The whole mind of Fate is bent against you,'
said the Lady. 'But all I can do is give you one
chance. Just one, small chance. The rest is up to

you.'

She vanished.

'Gosh,' said Twoflower, after a while. 'That's the
first time I've ever seen a goddess.'

The door swung open. Garhartra entered, holding 
a wand in front of him. Behind him were two
guards, armed more conventionally with swords.

'Ah,' he said conversationally.'You are ready, I
see.'   

Ready, said a voice inside Rincewind's head.

The bottle that the wizard had flung some eight
hours earlier had been hanging in the air,
imprisoned by magic in its own personal time-field.
But during all those hours the original mane of the
spell had been slowly leaking away until the total
magical energy was no longer sufficient to hold it 
against the Universe's own powerful normality
field, and when that happened Reality snapped
back in a matter of microseconds. The visible sign
of this was that the bottle suddenly completed the
last part of its parabola and burst against the side
of the Guestmaster's head, showering the guards
with glass and jellyfish wine.

Rincewind grabbed Twoflower's arm, kicked the
nearest guard in the groin, and dragged the
startled tourist into the corridor. Before the
stunned Garhartra had sunk to the floor his two
guests were already pounding across distant flagstones.

Rincewind skidded around a corner and found
himself on a balcony that ran around the four sides
of a courtyard. Below them, most of the floor of the
yard was taken up by an ornamental pond in
which a few terrapins sunbathed among the lily
leaves.

And ahead of Rincewind were a couple of very
surprised wizards wearing the distinctive dark
blue and black robes of trained hydrophobes. One

of them, quicker on the uptake than his companion,
raised a hand and began the first words of a spell.

There was a short sharp noise by Rincewind's
side. Twoflower had spat. The hydrophobe
screamed and dropped his hand as though it had
been stung.

The other didn't have time to move before Rincewind
was on him, fists swinging wildly. One stiff
punch with the weight of terror behind it sent
the man tumbling over the balcony rail and into
the pond, which did a very strange thing; the water
smacked aside as though a large invisible balloon
had been dropped into it, and the hydrophobe hung
screaming in his own revulsion field.

Twoflower watched him in amazement until
Rincewind snatched at his shoulder and indicated
a likely looking passage. They hurried down it,
leaving the remaining hydrophobe writhing on the
floor and snatching at his damp hand.
For a while there was some shouting behind
them, but they scuttled along a cross corridor and
another courtyard and soon left the sounds of
pursuit behind. Finally Rincewind picked a safe
looking door, peered around it, found the room
beyond to be unoccupied, dragged Twoflower
inside, and slammed it behind him. Then he leaned
against it, wheezing horribly.

'We're totally lost in a palace on an island we
haven't a hope of leaving,' he panted.'And what's
more we- hey!' he finished, as the sight of the
contents of the room filtered up his deranged optic
nerves.

Twoflower was already staring at the walls.

Because what was so odd about the room was, it
contained the whole Universe.

Death sat in His garden, running a whetstone
along the edge of His scythe. It was already so
sharp that any passing breeze that blew across it
was sliced smoothly into two puzzled zephyrs,
although breezes were rare indeed in Death's silent
garden. It lay on a sheltered plateau overlooking
the Disc world's complex dimensions, and behind
it loomed the cold, still, immensely high and
brooding mountains of Eternity.

Swish! went the stone. Death hummed a dirge,
and tapped one bony foot on the frosty flagstones.

Someone approached through the dim orchard
where the nightapples grew, and there came the
sickly sweet smell of crushed lilies. Death looked
up angrily, and found Himself staring into eyes
that were black as the inside of a cat and full of
distant stars that had no counterpart among the
familiar constellations of the Realtime universe.

Death and Fate looked at each other. Death
grinned - He had no alternative, of course, being
made of implacable bone. The whetstone sang
rhythmically along the blade as He continued His
task.

'I have a task for you,' said Fate. His words
drifted across death's scythe and split tidily into
two ribbons of consonants and vowels.

I HAVE TASKS ENOUGH THIS DAY, said Death in a
voice as heavy as neutronium, THE WHITE PLAGUE
ABIDES EVEN NOW IN PSEUDOPOLIS AND I AM BOUND
THERE TO RESCUE MANY OF ITS CITIZENS FROM HIS
GRASP. SUCH A ONE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN THESE
HUNDRED YEARS. I AM EXPECTED TO STALK THE
STREETS, AS IS MY DUTY.

'I refer to the matter of the little wanderer and
the rogue wizard,' said Fate softly, seating himself
beside Death's black-robed form and staring down
at the,distant, multifaceted jewel which was the
Disc universe as seen from this extra-dimensional
vantage point.

The scythe ceased its song.

'They die in a few hours,' said Fate. 'It is fated.'

Death stirred, and the stone began to move again.

'I thought you would be pleased,' said Fate.

Death shrugged, a particularly expressive gesture
for someone whose visible shape was that of a
skeleton.

I DID INDEED CHASE THEM MIGHTILY. ONCE, he
said, BUT AT LAST THE THOUGHT CAME TO ME THAT
SOONER OR LATER AlL MEN MUST DIE. EVERYTHING
DIES IN THE END. I CAN BE ROBBED BUT NEVER
DENIED, I TOLD MYSELF. WHY WORRY?

'I too cannot be cheated,' snapped Fate.

SO I HAVE HEARD, said Death, still grinning.

'Enough!' shouted Fate, jumping to his feet.
'They will die!' He vanished in a sheet of blue fire.

Death nodded to Himself and continued at His
work. After some minutes the edge of the blade
seemed to be finished to His satisfaction. He stood
up and levelled the scythe at the fat and noisome
candle that burned on the edge of the bench and
then, with two deft sweeps, cut the flame into three
bright slivers. Death grinned.

A short while later he was saddling his white
stallion, which lived in a stable at the back of
Death's cottage. The beast snuffled at him in a
friendly fashion; though it was crimson-eyed and
had flanks like oiled silk, it was nevertheless a real
flesh-and-blood horse and, indeed, was in all
probability better treated than most beasts of
burden on the Disc. Death was not an unkind
master. He weighed very little and, although He
often rode back with His saddlebags bulging, they
weighed nothing whatsoever.

'All those worlds!' said Twoflower.'It's fantastic!'

Rincewind grunted, and continued to prowl
warily around the star-filled room. Twoflower
turned to a complicated astrolabe, in the centre of
which was the entire Great A'Tuin-Elephant-Disc
system wrought in brass and picked out with tiny
jewels. Around it stars and planets wheeled on fine
silver wires.

'Fantastic!' he said again. On the walls around
him constellations made of tiny phosphorescent
seed pearls had been picked out on vast tapestries
made of jet-black velvet, giving the room's occupants
the impression of floating in the interstellar
gulf. Various easels held huge sketches of Great
A'Tuin as viewed from various parts of the Circumfence,
with every mighty scale and cratered
pock-mark meticulously marked in. Twoflower
stared about him with a faraway look in his eyes.

Rincewind was deeply troubled. What troubled
him most of all were the two suits that hung from
supports in the centre of the room. He circled them
uneasily.

They appeared to be made of fine white leather,
hung about with straps and brass nozzles and
other highly unfamiliar and suspicious contrivances
. The leggings ended in high, thick-soled
boots, and the arms were shoved into big supple
gauntlets. Strangest of all were the big copper
helmets that were obviously supposed to fit on
heavy collars around the neck of the suits. The
helmets were almost certainly useless for protection 
a light sword would have no difficulty in
splitting them, even if it didn't hit the ridiculous
little glass windows in the front. Each helmet had
a crest of white feathers on top, which went
absolutely no way at all towards improving their
overall appearance.

Rincewind was beginning to have the glimmerings 
of a suspicion about those suits.

In front of them .was a table covered with
celestial charts and scraps of parchment covered
with figures. Whoever would be wearing those
suits, Rincewind decided, was expecting to boldly
go where no man - other than the occasional
luckless sailor, who didn't really count - had boldly
gone before, and he was now beginning to get not
just a suspicion but a horrible premonition.

He turned round and found Twoflower looking
at him with a speculative expression.

'No-' began Rincewind, urgently. Twoflower
ignored him.

'The goddess said two men were going to be sent
over the Edge,' he said, his eyes gleaming, 'and you
remember Tethis the troll saying you'd need some
kind of protection? The Krullians have got over
that. These are suits of space armour.'

'They don't look very roomy to me,' said
Rincewind hurriedly, and grabbed the tourist by
the arm, 'so if you'd just come on, no sense in
staying here-'

'Why must you always panic?' asked Twoflower
petulantly.

'Because the whole of my future life just flashed
in front of my eyes, and it didn't take very long,

and if you don't move now I'm going to leave
without you because any second now you're going
to suggest that we put on-'

The door opened.

Two husky young men stepped into the room. All
they were wearing was a pair of woollen pants
apiece. One of them was still towelling himself
briskly. They both nodded at the two escapees with
no apparent surprise.

The taller of the two men sat down on one of the
benches in front of the seats. He beckoned to
Rincewind, and said:

'? Ty0 yur atl h0 sooten gatrunen?'

And this was awkward, because although Rincewind
considered himself an expert in most of the
tongues of the western segments of the Disc it was
the first time that he had ever been addressed in
Krullian, and he did not understand one word of it.
Neither did Twoflower, but that did not stop him
stepping forward and taking a breath.

The speed of light through a magical aura such
as the one that surrounded the Disc was quite slow,
being not much faster than the speed of sound in
less highly-tuned universes. But it was still the
fastest thing around with the exception, in moments
like this, of Rincewind's mind.

In an instant he became aware that the tourist
was about to try his own peculiar brand of
linguistics, which meant that he would speak
loudly and slowly in his own language.

Rincewind's elbow shot back, knocking the
breath from Twoflower's body. When the little man
looked up in pain and astonishment Rincewind
caught his eye and pulled an imaginary tongue out
of his mouth and cut it with an imaginary pair of
scissors.

The second chelonaut- for such was the profession
of the men whose fate it would shortly be to
voyage to Great A'Tuin - looked up from the chart

table and watched this in puzzlement. His big
heroic brow wrinkled with the effort of speech.

'? Hor yu latruin nor u?' he said.

Rincewind smiled and nodded and pushed
Twoflower in his general direction. With an inward
sigh of relief he saw the tourist pay sudden
attention to a big brass telescope that lay on the
table.

'! Sooten u!' commanded the seated chelonaut.
Rincewind nodded and smiled and took one of the
big copper helmets from the rack and brought it
down on the man's head as hard as he possibly
could. The chelonaut fell forward with a soft grunt.

The other man took one startled step before
Twoflower hit him amateurishly but effectively
with the telescope. He crumpled on top of his
colleague.

Rincewind and Twoflower looked at each other
over the carnage.

'All right!' snapped Rincewind, aware that he
had lost some kind of contest but not entirely
certain what it was. 'Don't bother to say it.
Someone out there is expecting these two guys to
come out in the suits in a minute. I suppose they
thought we were slaves. Help me hide these behind

the drapes and then, and then-'

'-we'd better suit up,' said Twoflower, picking
up the second helmet.

'Yes,' said Rincewind. 'You know, as soon as I
saw the suits I just knew I'd end up wearing one.
Don't ask me how I knew - I suppose it was
because it was just about the worst possible thing
that was likely to happen.'

'Well, you said yourself we have no way of
escaping,' said Twoflower, his voice muffled as he
pulled the top half of a suit over his head.
'Anything's better than being sacrificed.'

'As soon as we get a chance we run for it,' said
Rincewind. 'Don't get any ideas.'

He thrust an arm savagely into his suit and
banged his head on the helmet. He reflected briefly
that someone up there was watching over him.

'Thanks a lot,' he said bitterly.

At the very edge of the city and country of Krull
was a large semicircular amphitheatre, with seating
for several tens of thousands of people. The
arena was only semi-circular for the very elegant
reason that it overlooked the cloud sea that boiled
up from the Rimfall, far below, and now every seat
was occupied. And the crowd was growing restive.
It had come to see a double sacrifice and also the
launching of the great bronze space ship. Neither
event had yet materialised.

The Arch-Astronomer beckoned the Master
Launchcontroller to him.

'Well?' he said, filling a mere four letters with a
full lexicon of anger and menace. The Master
Launchcontroller went pale.

'No news, lord,' said the Launchcontroller, and
added with a brittle brightness, 'except that your
prominence will be pleased to hear that Garhartra
has recovered.'

'That is a fact he may come to regret,' said the
Arch-Astronomer.

'Yes, lord.'

'How much longer do we have?'

The Launchcontroller glanced at the rapidly-climbing
sun.

'Thirty minutes, your prominence. After that
Krull will have revolved away from Great A'Tuin's
tail and the Potent Voyager will be doomed to spin
away into the interterrapene gulf. I have already
set the automatic controls, so-'

'All right, all right,' the Arch-Astronomer said,
waving him away. 'The launch must go ahead.
Maintain the watch on the harbour, of course.
When the wretched pair are caught I will personally 
take a great deal of pleasure in executing them
myself.'

'Yes, lord. Er-'

The Arch-Astronomer frowned. 'What else have
you got to say, man?'

The Launchcontroller swallowed. All this was
very unfair on him, he was a practical magician
rather than a diplomat, and that was why some
wiser brains had seen to it that he would be the one
to pass on the news.

'A monster has come out of the sea and it's
attacking the ships in the harbour,' he said. 'A
runner just arrived from there.'

'A big monster?' said the Arch-Astronomer.

'Not particularly, although it is said to be
exceptionally fierce, lord.'

The ruler of Krull and the Circumfence considered
this for a moment, then shrugged.

'The sea is full of monsters,' he said.'It is one of
its prime attributes. Have it dealt with. AndMaster
Launchcontroller?'

'Lord?'

'If I am further vexed, you will recall that two
people are due to be sacrificed. I may feel generous
and increase the number.'

'Yes, lord.'The Master Launchcontroller scuttled
away, relieved to be out of the autocrat's sight.

The Potent Voyager, no longer the blank bronze
shell that had been smashed from the mould a few
days earlier, rested in its cradle on top of a wooden
tower in the centre of the arena. In front of it a
railway ran down towards the Edge, where for the
space of a few yards it turned suddenly upwards.

The late Dactylos Goldeneyes, who had designed
the launching pad as well as the Potent Voyager
itself, had claimed that this last touch was merely
to ensure that the ship would not snag on any
rocks as it began its long plunge. Maybe it was
merely coincidental that it would also, because of

that little twitch in the track, leap like a salmon
and shine theatrically in the sunlight before disappearing
into the cloud sea.

There was a fanfare of trumpets at the edge of
the arena. The chelonauts' honour guard appeared,
to much cheering from the crowd. Then the whitesuited
explorers themselves stepped out into the
light.

It immediately dawned on the Arch-Astronomer
that something was wrong. Heroes always walked
in a certain way, for example. They certainly didn't
waddle, and one of the chelonauts was definitely
waddling.

The roar of the assembled people of Krull was
deafening. As the chelonauts and their guards
crossed the great arena, passing between the many
altars that had been set up for the various wizards
and priests of Krull's many sects to ensure the
success of the launch, the Arch-Astronomer frowned.
By the time the party was halfway across the floor
his mind had reached a conclusion. By the time the
chelonauts were standing at the foot of the ladder
that led to the ship- and was there more than a
hint of reluctance about them? - the Arch-Astronomer
was on his feet, his words lost in the noise of
the crowd. One of his arms shot out and back
fingers spread dramatically in the traditional
spell-casting position, and any passing lip-reader
who was also familiar with the standard texts on
magic would have recognized the opening words of
Vestcake's Floating Curse, and would then have
prudently run away.

Its final words remained unsaid, however. The
Arch-Astronomer turned in astonishment as a
commotion broke out around the big arched
entrance to the arena. Guards were running out
into the daylight, throwing down their weapons as
they scuttled among the altars or vaulted the
parapet into the stands.

Something emerged behind them, and the crowd
around the entrance ceased its raucous cheering
and began a silent, determined scramble to get out
of the way.

The something was a low dome of seaweed,
moving slowly but with a sinister sense of purpose.
One guard overcame his horror sufficiently to
stand in its path and hurl his spear, which landed
squarely among the weeds. The crowd cheered then
went deathly silent as the dome surged
forward and engulfed the man completely.

The Arch-Astronomer dismissed the half-formed
shape of Vestcake's famous Curse with a sharP
wave of his hand, and quickly spoke the words of
one of the most powerful spells in his repertoire: the
Infernal Combustion Enigma.

Octarine fire spiralled around and between his
fingers as he shaped the complex rune of the spell
in mid-air and sent it, screaming and trailing blue
smoke, towards the shape.

There was a satisfying explosion and a gout of
flame shot up into the clear morning sky, shedding
flakes of burning seaweed on the way. A cloud of
smoke and steam concealed the monster for several
minutes, and when it cleared the dome had completely
disappeared.

There was a large charred circle on the flagstones,
however, in which a few clumps of kelp and
bladderwrack still smouldered.

And in the centre of the circle was a perfectly
ordinary, if somewhat large, wooden chest. It was
not even scorched. Someone on the far side of the

arena started to laugh, but the sound was broken
off abruptly as the chest rose up on dozens of what
could only be legs and turned to face the Arch-Astronomer.
A perfectly ordinary if somewhat
large wooden chest does not, of course, have a face
with which to face, but this one was quite definitely
facing. In precisely the same way as he understood

that, the Arch-Astronomer was also horribly aware
that this perfectly normal box was in some
indescribable way narrowing its eyes.

It began to move resolutely towards him. He
shuddered.

'Magicians!' he screamed. 'Where are my magicians?'

Around the arena pale-faced men peeped out
from behind altars and under benches. One of the
bolder ones, seeing the expression on the Arch-Astronomer's 
face, raised an arm tremulously and
essayed a hasty thunderbolt. It hissed towards the
chest and struck it squarely in a shower of white
sparks.

That was the signal for every magician,
enchanter and thaumaturgist in Krull to leap up
eagerly and, under the terrified eyes of their
master, unleash the first spell that came to each
desperate mind. Charms curved and whistled
through the air.

Soon the chest was lost to view again in an
expanding cloud of magical particles, which billowed
out and wreathed it in twisting, disquieting
shapes. Spell after spell screamed into the melee.
Flame and lightning bolts of all eight colours
stabbed out brightly from the seething thing that
now occupied the space where the box had been.

Not since the Mage Wars had so much magic
been concentrated on one small area. The air itself
wavered and glittered. Spell ricocheted off spell,
creating short-lived wild spells whose brief half-life
was both weird and uncontrolled. The stones under
the heaving mass began to buckle and split. One of
them in fact turned into something best left
undescribed and slunk off into some dismal
dimension. Other strange side-effects began to
manifest themselves. A shower of small lead cubes
bounced out of the storm and rolled across the
heaving floor, and eldritch shapes gibbered and

beckoned obscenely; four-sided triangles and double-ended
circles existed momentarily before merging
again into the booming, screaming tower of runaway
raw magic that boiled up from the molten
flagstones and spread out over Krull. It no longer
mattered that most of the magicians had ceased
their spell casting and fled - the thing was now
feeding on the stream of octarine particles that
were always at their thickest near the Edge of the
Disc. Throughout the island of Krull every magical
activity failed as all the available mana in the area
was sucked into the cloud, which was already a
quarter of a mile high and streaming out into
mind-curdling shapes; hydrophobes on their seaskimming
lenses crashed screaming into the waves,
magic potions turned to mere impure water in their
phials, magic swords melted and dripped from
their scabbards.

But none of this in any way prevented the thing
at the base of the cloud, now gleaming mirrorbright
in the intensity of the power storm around
it, from moving at a steady walking pace towards
the Arch-Astronomer.

Rincewind and Twoflower watched in awe from
the shelter of Potent Voyager's launch tower. The
honour party had long since vanished, leaving
their weapons scattered behind them.

'Well,' sighed Twoflower at last, 'there goes the
Luggage.' He sighed.

'Don't you believe it,' said Rincewind. 'Sapient
pearwood is totally impervious to all known forms
of magic. It's been constructed to follow you

anywhere. I mean, when you die, if you go to
Heaven, you'll at least have a clean pair of socks in
the afterlife. But I don't want to die yet, so let's just
get going, shall we?'

'Where?' said Twoflower.

Rincewind picked up a crossbow and a handful

of quarrels. 'Anywhere that isn't here,' he said.

'What about the Luggage?'

'Don't worry. When the storm has used up all the
free magic in the vicinity it'll just die out.'

In fact that was already beginning to happen.
The billowing cloud was still flowing up from the
area but now it had a tenuous, harmless look about
it. Even as Twoflower stared, it began to flicker
uncertainly.

Soon it was a pale ghost. The luggage was now
visible as a squat shape among the almost
invisible flames. Around it the rapidly cooling
stones began to crack and buckle.

Twoflower called softly to his luggage. It
stopped its stolid progression across the tortured
flags and appeared to be listening intently; then,
moving its dozens of feet in an intricate pattern, it
turned on its length and headed towards the Potent
Voyager. Rincewind watched it sourly. The Luggage
had an elemental nature, absolutely no brain,
a homicidal attitude towards anything that threatened
its master, and he wasn't quite sure that its
inside occupied the same space-time framework as
its outside.

'Not a mark on it,' said Twoflower cheerfully, as
the box settled down in front of him. He pushed
open the lid.

'This is a fine time to change your underwear,'
snarled Rincewind. 'In a minute all those guards
and priests are going to come back, and they're
going to be upset, man!'

'Water,' murmured Twoflower. 'The whole box is
full of water!'

Rincewind peered over his shoulder. There was
no sign of clothes, moneybags, or any other of the
tourist's belongings. The whole box was full of
water.

A wave sprang up from nowhere and lapped over
the edge. It hit the flagstones but, instead of

spreading out, began to take the shape of-a foot.
Another foot and the bottom half of a pair of legs
followed as more water streamed down as if filling
an invisible mould. A moment later Tethis the sea
troll was standing in front of them, blinking.

'I see,' he said at last. 'You two. I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised.'

He looked around, ignoring their astonished
expressions.

'I was just sitting outside my hut, watching the
sun set, when this thing came roaring up out of the
water and swallowed me,' he said. 'I thought it was
rather strange. Where is this place?'

'Krull,' said Rincewind. He stared hard at the
now closed luggage, which was managing to
project a smug expression. Swallowing people was
something it did quite frequently, but always when
the lid was next opened there was nothing inside
but Twoflower's laundry. Savagely he wrenched
the lid up. There was nothing inside but Twoflower's 
laundry. It was perfectly dry.

'Well, well,' said Tethis. He looked up.

'Hey!' he said. 'Isn't this the ship they're going to
send over the Edge? Isn't it? It must be!'

An arrow zipped through his chest, leaving a

faint ripple. He didn't appear to notice. Rincewind
did. Soldiers were beginning to appear at the edge
of the arena, and a number of them were peering
around the entrances.

Another arrow bounced off the tower behind
Twoflower. At this range the bolts did not have a
lot of force, but it would only be a matter of time . . .

'Quick!' said Twoflower. 'Into the ship! They
won't dare fire at that!'

'I knew you were going to suggest that,' groaned
Rincewind. 'I just knew it!'

He aimed a kick at the Luggage. It backed off a
few inches, and opened its lid threateningly.

A spear arced out of the sky and trembled to a

halt in the woodwork by the wizard's ear. He
screamed briefly and scrambled up the ladder after
the others.

Arrows whistled around them as theY came out
on to the narrow catwalk that led along the spine
of the Potent Voyager. Twoflower led the way,
jogging along with what Rincewind considered to
be too much suppressed excitement.

Atop the centre of the ship was a large round
bronze hatch with hasps around it. The troll and
the tourist knelt down and started to work on them.

In the heart of the Potent Voyager fine sand had
been trickling into a carefully designed cup for
several hours. Now the cup was filled by exactly
the right amount to dip down and upset a carefully-balanced
weight. The weight swung away, pulling
a pin from an intricate little mechanism. A chain
began to move. There was a clonk . . .

'What was that?' said Rincewind urgently. He
looked down.

The hail of arrows had stopped. The crowd of
priests and soldiers were standing motionless,
staring intently at the ship. A small worried man
elbowed his way through them and started to shout
something.

'What was what?' said Twoflower, busy with a
wing-nut.

'I thought I heard something,' said Rincewind.
'Look,' he said,'we'll threaten to damage the thing
if they don't let us go, right? That's all we're going
to do, right?'

'Yah,' said Twoflower vaguely. He sat back on
his heels. 'That's it,' he said. 'It ought to lift off
now.'

Several muscular men were swarming up the
ladder to the ship. Rincewind recognized the two
chelonauts among them. They were carrying swords.

'I-' he began.

The ship lurched. Then, with infinite slowness, it
began to move along the rails.

In that moment of black horror Rincewind saw
that Twoflower and the troll had managed to pull
the hatch up. A metal ladder inside led into the
cabin below. The troll disappeared.

'We've got to get off,' whispered Rincewind.
Twoflower looked at him, a strange mad smile on
his face.

'Stars,' said the tourist.'Worlds. The whole damn
sky full of worlds. Places no-one will ever see.
Except me.' He stepped through the hatchway.

'You're totally mad,' said Rincewind hoarsely,
trying to keep his balance as the ship began to
speed up. He turned as one of the chelonauts tried
to leap the gap between the Voyager and the tower,
landed on the curving flank of the ship, scrabbled
for an instant for purchase, failed to find any, and
dropped away with a shriek.

The Voyager was travelling quite fast now. Rincewind
could see past Twoflower's head to the sunlit
cloud sea and the impossible Rimbow, floating
tantalisingly beyond it, beckoning fools to venture
too far . . .

He also saw a gang of men climbing desperately
over the lower slopes of the launching ramp and
manhandling a large baulk of timber on to the

track, in a frantic attempt to derail the ship before
it vanished over the Edge. The wheels slammed
into it, but the only effect was to make the ship
rock, Twoflower to lose his grip on the ladder and
fall into the cabin, and the hatch to slam down
with the horrible sound of a dozen fiddly little
catches snapping into place. Rincewind dived
forward and scrabbled at them, whimpering.

The cloud sea was much nearer now. The Edge
itself, a rocky perimeter to the arena, was startlingly
close.

Rincewind stood up. There was only one thing to
do now, and he did it. He panicked blindly, just as

the ship's bogeys hit the little upgrade and flung it
sparkling like a salmon, into the sky and over the
Edge.

A few seconds later there was a thunder of little
feet and the Luggage cleared the rim of the world,
legs still pumping determinedly, and plunged down
into the Universe.

THE END

Rincewind woke up and shivered. He was freezing
cold.

So this is it, he thought. When you die you go to a
cold, damp, misty freezing place. Hades, where the
mournful spirits of the Dead troop forever across
the sorrowful marshes, corpse-lights flickering fit
fully in the encircling-hang on a minute . . .

Surely Hades wasn't this uncomfortable? And he
was very uncomfortable indeed. His back ached
where a branch was pressing into it, his legs and
arms hurt where the twigs had lacerated them and,
judging by the way his head was feeling, something
hard had recently hit it. If this was Hades it sure
was hell-hang on a minute . . .

Tree. He concentrated on the word that floated up
from his mind, although the buzzing in his ears and
the flashing lights in front of his eyes made this an
unexpected achievement. Tree. Wooden thing. That
was it. Branches and twigs and things. And
Rincewind, lying in it. Tree. Dripping wet. Cold
white cloud all around. Underneath, too. Now that
was odd.

He was alive and lying covered in bruises in a
small thorn tree that was growing in a crevice in a
rock that projected out of the foaming white wall
that was the Rimfall. The realization hit him in
much the same way as an icy hammer. He shuddered.
The tree gave a warning creak.

Something blue and blurred shot past him, dipped
briefly into the thundering waters, and whirred
back and settled on a branch near Rincewind's
head. It was a small bird with a tuft of blue and
green feathers. It swallowed the little silver fish
that it had snatched from the Fall and eyed him
curiously.

Rincewind became aware that there were lots of
similar birds around.

They hovered, darted and swooped easily across
the face of the water, and every so often one would
raise an extra plume of spray as it stole another
doomed morsel from the waterfall. Several of them
were perching in the tree. They were as iridescent as
jewels. Rincewind was entranced.

He was in fact the first man ever to see the
rimfishers, the tiny creatures who had long ago
evolved a lifestyle quite unique even for the Disc.
long before the Krullians had built the Circumfence
the rimfishers had devised their own efficient
method of policing the edge of the world for a living.

They didn't seem bothered about Rincewind. He
had a brief but chilling vision of himself living the
rest of his life out in this tree, subsisting on raw
birds and such fish as he could snatch as they
plummeted past.

The tree moved distinctly. Rincewind gave a
whimper as he found himself sliding backwards,
but managed to grab a branch. Only, sooner or
later, he would fall asleep . . .

There was a subtle change of scene, a slight
purplish tint to the sky. A tall, black-cloaked figure

was standing on the air next to the tree. It had a
scythe in one hand. Its face was hidden in the
shadows of the hood.

I HAVE COME FOR THEE, said the invisible mouth,
in tones as heavy as a whale's heartbeat.

The trunk of the tree gave another protesting
creak, and a pebble bounced off Rincewind's helmet

as one root tore loose from the rock.

Death Himself always came in person to harvest
the souls of wizards.

'What am I going to die of?' said Rincewind.

The tall figure hesitated.

PARDoN? it said.

'Well, I haven't broken anything, and I haven't
drowned, so what am I about to die of-? You can't just
be killed by Death; there has to be a reason,' said
Rincewind. To his utter amazement he didn't feel
terrified any more. For about the first time in his life

he wasn't frightened. Pity the experience didn't look
like lasting for long.  
Death appeared to reach a conclusion.  !

YOU COUlD DIE OF TERROR, the hood intoned. The
voice still had its graveyard ring, but there was a
slight tremor of uncertainty.

'Won't work,' said Rincewind smugly.

THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A REASON, said Death,
I CAN JUST KILL YOU.

'Hey, you can't do that! It'd be murder!'

The cowled figure sighed and pulled back its . hood. Instead of the grinning death's head that
Rincewind had been expecting he found himself
looking up into the pale and slightly transparent
face of a rather worried demon, of sorts.

'I'm making rather a mess of this, aren't I?' it
said wearily.

'You're not Death! Who are you?' cried Rincewind.

'
Scrofula.'

'Scrofula ?'

'Death couldn't come,' said the demon wretchedly.
'There's a big plague on in Pseudopolis. He had to
go and stalk the streets. So he sent me.'

'No-one dies of scrofula! I've got rights. I'm a
wizard!'

'All right, all right. This was going to be my big
chance,' said Scrofula, 'but look at it this way - if I
hit you with this scythe you'll be just as dead as
you would be if Death had done it. Who'd know?'

'I'd know!' snapped Rincewind.

'You wouldn't. You'd be dead,' said Scrofula
logically.

'Piss off,' said Rincewind.

'That's all very well,' said the demon, hefting the
scythe' 'but why not try to see things from my
point of view? This means a lot to me, and you've
got to admit that your life isn't all that wonderful.
Reincarnation can only be an improvement- uh.'

His hand flew to his mouth but Rincewind was
already pointing a trembling finger at him.

'Reincarnation!' he said excitedly. 'So it is true
what the mystics say!'

'I'm admitting nothing,' said Scrofula testily.'It
was a slip of the tongue. Now- are you going to die

willingly or not?'

'No,' said Rincewind.

'Please yourself,' replied the demon. He raised
the scythe. It whistled down in quite a professional
way, but Rincewind wasn't there. He was in fact
several metres below, and the distance was increasing
all the time, because the branch had chosen
that moment to snap and send him on his interrupted
journey towards the interstellar gulf.

'Come back!' screamed the demon.

Rincewind didn't answer. He was lying belly
down in the rushing air, staring down into the
clouds that even now were thinning.

They vanished.

Below, the whole Universe twinkled at Rincewind.
There was Great A'Tuin, huge and ponderous
and pocked with craters. There was the little
Disc moon. There was a distant gleam that could
only be the Potent Voyager. And there were all the
stars, looking remarkably like powdered diamonds
spilled on black velvet, the stars that lured and
ultimately called the boldest towards them. . .

The whole of Creation was waiting for Rincewind
to drop in.
He did so.
There didn't seem to be any alternative.

THE END