by Terry Pratchett

The place where the story happened was a world on the back of four elephants perched on the shell of a giant turtle. That's the advantage of space. It's big enough to hold practically anything, and so, eventually, it does.

People think that it is strange to have a turtle ten thousand miles long and an elephant more than two thousand miles tall, which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably originally designed for cooling the blood. It believes mere size is amazing.

There's nothing amazing about size. Turtles are amazing, and elephants are quite astonishing. But the fact that there's a big turtle is far less amazing than the fact that there is a turtle anywhere.

The reason for the story was a mix of many things. There was humanity's desire to do forbidden deeds merely because they were forbidden. There was its desire to find new horizons and kill the people who live beyond them. There were the mysterious scrolls. There was the cucumber. But mostly there was the knowledge that one day, quite soon, it would be all over.

"Ah, well, life goes on," people say when someone dies. But from the point of view of the person who has just died, it doesn't. It's the universe that goes on. Just as the deceased was getting the hang of everything it's all whisked away, by illness or accident or, in one case, a cucumber. Why this has to be is one of the imponderables of life, in the face of which people either start to pray... or become really, really angry.

The beginning of the story happened tens of thousands of years ago, on a wild and stormy night, when a speck of flame came down the mountain at the centre of the world. It moved in dodges and jerks, as if the unseen person carrying it was sliding and falling from rock to rock. At one point the line became a streak of sparks, ending in a snowdrift at the bottom of a crevasse. But a hand thrust up through the snow held the smoking embers of the torch, and the wind, driven by the anger of the gods, and with a sense of humour of its own, whipped the flame back into life... And, after that, it never died.

The end of the story began high above the world, but got lower and lower as it circled down towards the ancient and modern city of Ankh-Morpork, where, it was said, anything could be bought and sold — and if they didn't have what you wanted they could steal it for you.

Some of them could even dream it...

The creature now seeking out a particular building below was a trained Pointless Albatross and, by the standards of the world, was not particularly unusual.[1] It was, though, pointless. It spent its entire life in a series of lazy journeys between the Rim and the Hub, and where was the point in that?

This one was more or less tame. Its beady mad eye spotted where, for reasons entirely beyond its comprehension, anchovies could be found. And someone would remove this uncomfortable cylinder from its leg. It seemed a pretty good deal to the albatross and from this it can be deduced that these albatrosses are, if not completely pointless, at least rather dumb.

Not at all like humans, therefore.

Flight has been said to be one of the great dreams of Mankind. In fact it merely harks back to Man's ancestors, whose greatest dream was of falling off the branch. In any case, other great dreams of Mankind have included the one about being chased by huge boots with teeth. And no one says that one has to make sense.

Three busy hours later Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, was standing in the main hall of Unseen University, and he was impressed. The wizards, once they understood the urgency of a problem, and then had lunch, and argued about the pudding, could actually work quite fast.

Their method of finding a solution, as far as the Patrician could see, was by creative hubbub. If the question was, "What is the best spell for turning a book of poetry into a frog?", then the one thing they would not do was look in any book with a title like Major Amphibian Spells in a Literary Environment: A Comparison. That would, somehow, be cheating. They would argue about it instead, standing around a blackboard, seizing the chalk from one another and rubbing out bits of what the current chalk-holder was writing before he'd finished the other end of the sentence. Somehow, though, it all seemed to work.

Now something stood in the centre of the hall. It looked, to the arts-educated Patrician, like a big magnifying glass surrounded by rubbish.

"Technically, my lord, an omniscope can see anywhere," said Archchancellor Ridcully, who was technically the head of All Known Wizardry.[2]

"Really? Remarkable."

"Anywhere and any time," Ridcully went on, apparently not impressed himself.

"How extremely useful."

"Yes, everyone says that," said Ridcully, kicking the floor morosely. "The trouble is, because the blasted thing can see everywhere, it's practically impossible to get it to see anywhere. At least, anywhere worth seeing. And you'd be amazed at how many places there are in the universe. And times, too."

"Twenty past one, for example," said the Patrician.

"Among others, indeed. Would you care to have a look, my lord?"

Lord Vetinari advanced cautiously and peered into the big round glass. He frowned.

"All I can see is what's on the other side of it," he said.

"All, that's because it's set to here and now, sir," said a young wizard who was still adjusting the device.

"Oh, I see," said the Patrician. "We have these at the palace, in fact. We call them win-dows."

"Well, if I do this," said the wizard, and did something to the rim of the glass, "it looks the other way." Lord Vetinari looked into his own face.

"And these we call mir-rors," he said, as if explaining to a child.

"I think not, sir," said the wizard. "It takes a moment to realise what you're seeing. It helps if you hold up your hand..."

Lord Vetinari gave him a severe look, but essayed a little wave.

"Oh. How curious. What is your name, young man?"

"Ponder Stibbons, sir. The new Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, sir. You see, sir, the trick isn't to build an omniscope because, after all, that's just a development of the old-fashioned crystal ball. It's to get it to see what you want. It's like tuning a string, and if —"

"Sorry, what applied magic?" said the Patrician.

"Inadvisably, sir." said Ponder smoothly, as if hoping that he could avoid the problem by driving straight through it. "Anyway... I think we can get it to the right area, sir. The power drain is considerable; we may have to sacrifice another gerbil."

The wizards began to gather around the device.

"Can you see into the future?" said Lord Vetinari.

"In theory yes, sir," said Ponder, "But that would be highly... well, inadvisable, you see, because initial studies indicate that the fact of observation would collapse the waveform in phase space."

Not a muscle moved on the Patrician's face.

"Pardon me, I'm a little out of date on faculty staff," he said. "Are you the one who has to take the dried frog pills?"

"No, sir. That's the Bursar, sir," said Ponder. "He has to have them because he's insane, sir."

"Ah," said Lord Vetinari, and now he did have an expression. It was that of a man resolutely refraining from saying what was on his mind.

"What Mr Stibbons means, my lord," said the Archchancellor, "is that there are billions and billions of futures that, er, sort of exist, d'yer see? They're all... the possible shapes of the future. But apparently the first one you actually look at is the one that becomes the future. It might not be one you'd like. Apparently it's all to do with the Uncertainty Principle."

"And that is... ?"

"I'm not sure. Mr Stibbons is the one who knows about that sort of thing."

An orangutan ambled past, carrying an extremely large number of books under each arm. Lord Vetinari looked at the hoses that snaked from the omniscope and out through the open door and across the lawn to... what was it? ... the High Energy Magic building?

He remembered the old days, when wizards had been gaunt and edgy and full of guile. They wouldn't have allowed an Uncertainty Principle to exist for any length of time; if you weren't certain, they'd say, what were you doing wrong? What you were uncertain of could kill you.

The omniscope flickered and showed a snowfield, with black mountains in the distance. The wizard called Ponder Stibbons appeared to be very pleased with this.

"I thought you said you could find him with this thing?" said Vetinari to the Archchancellor.

Ponder Stibbons looked up. "Do we have something that he has owned? Some personal item he has left lying around?" he said. "We could put it in the morphic resonator, connect that up to the omniscope and it'll home in on him like a shot."

"Whatever happened to the magic circles and dribbly candles?" said Lord Vetinari.

"Oh, they're for when we're not in a hurry, sir," said Ponder.

"Cohen the Barbarian is not known for leaving things lying around, I fear," said the Patrician. "Bodies, perhaps. All we know is that he is heading for Cori Celesti."

"The mountain at the Hub of the world, sir? Why?"

"I was hoping you would tell me, Mr Stibbons. That's why I'm here."

The Librarian ambled past again, with another load of books. Another response of the wizards, when faced with a new and unique situation, was to look through their libraries to see if it had ever happened before. This was, Lord Vetinari reflected, a good survival trait. It meant that in times of danger you spent the day sitting very quietly in a building with very thick walls.

He looked again at the piece of paper in his hand. Why were people so stupid? One sentence caught his eye: "He says the last hero ought to return what the first hero stole."

And, of course, everyone knew what the first hero stole.

The gods play games with the fate of men. Not complex ones, obviously, because gods lack patience.

Cheating is part of the rules. And gods play hard. To lose all believers is, for a god, the end. But a believer who survives the game gains honour and extra belief. Who wins with the most believers, lives.

Believers can include other gods, of course. Gods believe in belief.

There were always many games going on in Dunmanifestin, the abode of the gods on Cori Celesti. It looked, from outside, like a crowded city.[3] Not all gods lived there, many of them being bound to a particular country or, in the case of the smaller ones, even one tree. But it was a Good Address. It was where you hung your metaphysical equivalent of the shiny brass plate, like those small discreet buildings in the smarter areas of major cities which nevertheless appear to house one hundred and fifty lawyers and accountants, presumably on some sort of shelving.

The city's domestic appearance was because, while people are influenced by gods, so gods are influenced by people.

Most gods were people-shaped; people don't have much imagination, on the whole. Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed. Ask people to imagine an animal god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask. Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many.

Above the wheel of the world, the gods played on. They sometimes forgot what happened if you let a pawn get all the way up the board.

It took a little longer for the rumour to spread around the city, but in twos and threes the leaders of the great Guilds hurried into the University.

Then the ambassadors picked up the news. Around the city the big semaphore towers faltered in their endless task of exporting market prices to the world, sent the signal to clear the line for high-priority emergency traffic, and then clack'd the little packets of doom to chancelleries and castles across the continent.

They were in code, of course. If you have news about the end of the world, you don't want everyone to know.

Lord Vetinari stared along the table. A lot had been happening in the past few hours.

"If I may recap, then, ladies and gentlemen," he said, as the hubbub died away, "according to the authorities in Hunghung, the capital of the Agatean Empire, the Emperor Ghengiz Cohen, formerly known to the world as Cohen the Barbarian, is well en route to the home of the gods with a device of considerable destructive power and the intention, apparently, of, in his words, "returning what was stolen". And, in short, they ask us to stop him."

"Why us?" said Mr Boggis, head of the Thieves" Guild. "He's not our Emperor!"

"I understand the Agatean government believes us to be capable of anything," said Lord Vetinari. "We have zip, zing, vim and a go-getting, can-do attitude."

"Can do what?"

Lord Vetinari shrugged. "In this case, save the world."

"But we'll have to save it for everyone, right?" said Mr Boggis. "Even foreigners?"

"Well, yes. You cannot just save the bits you like," said Lord Vetinari. "But the thing about saving the world, gentlemen and ladies, is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on. So let us move forward. Can magic help us, Archchancellor?"

"No. Nothing magical can get within a hundred miles of the mountains," said the Archchancellor.

"Why not?"

"For the same reason you can't sail a boat into a hurricane. There's just too much magic. It overloads anything magical. A magic carpet would unravel in midair."

"Or turn into broccoli," said the Dean. "Or a small volume of poetry."

"Are you saying that we cannot get there in time?"

"Well... yes. Exactly. Of course. They're already near the base of the mountain."

"And they're heroes," said Mr Betteridge of the Guild of Historians.

"And that means, exactly?" said the Patrician, sighing.

"They're good at doing what they want to do."

"But they are also, as I understand it, very old men."

"Very old heroes," the historian corrected him. "That just means they've had a lot of experience in doing what they want to do."

Lord Vetinari sighed again. He did not like to live in a world of heroes. You had civilisation, such as it was, and you had heroes.

"What exactly has Cohen the Barbarian done that is heroic?" he said. "I seek only to understand."

"Well... you know... heroic deeds..."

"And they are... ?"

"Fighting monsters, defeating tyrants, stealing rare treasures, rescuing maidens... that sort of thing," said Mr Betteridge vaguely. "You know... heroic things."

"And who, precisely, defines the monstrousness of the monsters and the tyranny of the tyrants?" said Lord Vetinari, his voice suddenly like a scalpel — not vicious like a sword, but probing its edge into vulnerable places.

Mr Betteridge shifted uneasily. "Well... the hero, I suppose."

"Ah. And the theft of these rare items... I think the word that interests me here is the term "theft", an activity frowned on by most of the world's major religions, is it not? The feeling stealing over me is that all these terms are defined by the hero. You could say: I am a hero, so when I kill you that makes you, de facto, the kind of person suitable to be killed by a hero. You could say that a hero, in short, is someone who indulges every whim that, within the rule of law, would have him behind bars or swiftly dancing what I believe is known as the hemp fandango. The words we might use are: murder, pillage, theft and rape. Have I understood the situation?"

"Not rape, I believe," said Mr Betteridge, finding a rock on which he could stand. "Not in the case of Cohen the Barbarian. Ravishing, possibly."

"There is a difference?"

"It's more a matter of approach, I understand," said the historian. "I don't believe there were ever any actual complaints."

"Speaking as a lawyer," said Mr Slant of the Guild of Lawyers, "it is clear that the first ever recorded heroic deed to which the message refers was an act of theft from the rightful owners. The legends of many different cultures testify to this."

"Was it something you could actually steal?" said Ridcully.

"Manifestly yes," said the lawyer. "Theft is central to the legend. Fire was stolen from the gods."

"This is not currently the issue," said Lord Vetinari. "The issue, gentlemen, is that Cohen the Barbarian is climbing the mountain on which the gods live. And we cannot stop him. And he intends to return fire to the gods. Fire, in this case, in the shape of... let me see —"

Ponder Stibbons looked up from his notebooks, where he had been scribbling. "A fifty-pound keg of Agatean Thunder Clay," he said. "I'm amazed their wizards let him have it."

"He was... indeed. I assume he still is the Emperor," said Lord Vetinari. "So I would imagine that when the supreme ruler of your continent asks you for something, it is not the time for a prudent man to ask for a docket signed by Mr Jenkins of Requisitions."

"Thunder Clay is terribly powerful stuff," said Ridcully. "But it needs a special detonator. You have to smash a jar of acid inside the mixture. The acid soaks into it, and then — kablooie, I believe the term is."

"Unfortunately the prudent man also saw fit to give one of these to Cohen," said Lord Vetinari. "And if the resulting kablooie takes place atop the mountain, which is the hub of the world's magic field, it will, as I understand it, result in the field collapsing for... remind me, Mister Stibbons?"

"About two years," he said.

"Really? Well, we can do without magic for a couple of years, can't we?" said Mr Slant, managing to suggest that this would be a jolly good thing, too.

"With respect," said Ponder, without respect, "we cannot. The seas will run dry. The sun will burn out and crash. The elephants and the turtle may cease to exist altogether."

"That'll happen in just two years?"

"Oh, no. That'll happen within a few minutes, sir. You see, magic isn't just coloured lights and balls. Magic holds the world together."

In the sudden silence, Lord Vetinari's voice sounded crisp and clear.

"Is there anyone who knows anything about Ghengiz Cohen?" he said. "And is there anyone who can tell us why, before leaving the city, he and his men kidnapped a harmless minstrel from our embassy? Explosives, yes, very barbaric... but why a minstrel? Can anyone tell me?"

There was a bitter wind this close to Cori Celesti. From here the world mountain, which looked like a needle from afar, was a raw and ragged cascade of ascending peaks. The central spire was lost in a haze of snow crystals, miles high. The sun sparkled on them. Several elderly men sat huddled around a fire.

"I hope he's right about the stair of light," said Boy Willie. "We're going to look real muffins if it isn't there."

"He was right about the giant walrus," said Truckle the Uncivil.

"When?"

"Remember when we were crossing the ice? When he shouted, "Look out! We're going to be attacked by a giant walrus!""

"Oh, yeah."

Willie looked back up at the spire. The air seemed thinner already, the colours deeper, making him feel that he could reach up and touch the sky. "Anyone know if there's a lavatory at the top?" he said.

"Oh, there's got to be," said Caleb the Ripper. "Yeah, I'm sure I heard tell about it. The Toilet of the Gods."

"Whut?"

They turned to what appeared to be a pile of furs on wheels. When the eye knew what it was looking for this became an ancient wheelchair, mounted on skis and covered with rags of blanket and animal skins. A pair of beady, animal eyes peered out suspiciously from the heap.

There was a barrel strapped behind the wheelchair.

"It must be time for his gruel," said Boy Willie, putting a soot-encrusted pot on the fire.

"Whut?"

"JUST WARMING UP YOUR GRUEL, HAMISH!"

"Bludy walrus again?"

"YES!"

"Whut?"

They were, all of them, old men. Their background conversation was a litany of complaints about feet, stomachs and backs. They moved slowly. But they had a look about them. It was in their eyes.

Their eyes said that wherever it was, they had been there. Whatever it was, they had done it, sometimes more than once. But they would never, ever, buy the T-shirt. And they did know the meaning of the word 'fear'. It was something that happened to other people.

"I wish Old Vincent was here," said Caleb the Ripper, poking the fire aimlessly.

"Well, he's gone, and there's an end of it," said Truckle the Uncivil shortly. "We said we weren't going to bloody talk about it."

"But what a way to go... gods, I hope that doesn't happen to me. Something like that... it shouldn't happen to anyone..."

"Yes, all right," said Truckle.

"He was a good bloke. Took everything the world threw at him."

"All right."

"And then to choke on —"

"We all know! Now bloody well shut up!"

"Dinner's done," said Caleb, pulling a smoking slab of grease out of the embers. "Nice walrus steak, anyone? What about Mr Pretty?"

They turned to an evidently human figure that had been propped against a boulder. It was indistinct, because of the ropes, but it was clearly dressed in brightly coloured clothes. This wasn't the place for brightly coloured clothes. This was a land for fur and leather.

Boy Willie walked over to the colourful thing.

"We'll take the gag off," he said, "if you promise not to scream."

Frantic eyes darted this way and that, and then the gagged head nodded.

"All right, then. Eat your nice walrus... er, lump," said Boy Willie, pulling at the cloth.

"How dare you drag me all —" the minstrel began.

"Now look," said Boy Willie, "none of us like havin' to wallop you alongside the ear when you go on like this, do we? Be reasonable."

"Reasonable? When you kidnap —"

Boy Willie snapped the gag back into place.

"Thin streak of nothin'," he muttered at the angry eyes. "You ain't even got a harp. What kind of bard doesn't even have a harp? Just this sort of little wooden pot thing. Damn silly idea."

"'S called a lute," said Caleb, through a mouthful of walrus.

"Whut?"

"IT'S CALLED A LUTE, HAMISH!"

"Aye, I used to loot!"

"Nah, it's for singin' posh songs for ladies," said Caleb. "About... flowers and that. Romance."

The Horde knew the word, although the activity had been outside the scope of their busy lives.

"Amazin', what songs do for the ladies," said Caleb.

"Well, when I was a lad," said Truckle, "if you wanted to get a girl's int'rest, you had to cut off your worst enemy's wossname and present it to her."

"Whut?"

"I SAID YOU HAD TO CUT OFF YOUR WORST ENEMY'S WOSSNAME AND PRESENT IT TO HER!"

"Aye, romance is a wonderful thing," said Mad Hamish.

"What'd you do if you didn't have a worst enemy?" said Boy Willie.

"You try and cut off anyone's wossname," said Truckle, "and you've soon got a worst enemy."

"Flowers is more usual these days," said Caleb, reflectively.

Truckle eyed the struggling lutist.

"Can't think what the boss was thinking of, draggin' this thing along," he said. "Where is he, anyway?"

Lord Vetinari, despite his education, had a mind like an engineer. If you wished to open something, you found the appropriate spot and applied the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve your end. Possibly the spot was between a couple of ribs and the force was applied via a dagger, or between two warring countries and applied via an army, but the important thing was to find that one weak spot which would be the key to everything.

"And so you are now the unpaid Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography?" he said to the figure who had been brought before him.

The wizard known as Rincewind nodded slowly, just in case an admission was going to get him into trouble.

"Er... yes?"

"Have you been to the Hub?"

"Er... yes?"

"Can you describe the terrain?"

"Er..."

"What did the scenery look like?" Lord Vetinari added helpfully,

"Er... blurred, sir. I was being chased by some people."

"Indeed? And why was this?"

Rincewind looked shocked. "Oh, I never stop to find out why people are chasing me, sir. I never look behind, either. That'd be rather silly, sir."

Lord Vetinari pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just tell me what you know about Cohen, please," he said wearily.

"Him? He's just a hero who never died, sir. A leathery old man. Not very bright, really, but he's got so much cunning and guile you'd never know it."

"Are you a friend of his?"

"Well, we've met a couple of times and he didn't kill me," said Rincewind. "That probably counts as a 'yes'."

"And what about the old men who're with him?"

"Oh, they're not old men... well, yes, they are old men... but, well... they're his Silver Horde, sir."

"Those are the Silver Horde? All of it?"

"Yes, sir," said Rincewind.

"But I thought the Silver Horde conquered the entire Agatean Empire!"

"Yes, sir. That was them." Rincewind shook his head. "I know it's hard to believe, sir. But you haven't seen them fight. They're experienced. And the thing is... the big thing about Cohen is... he's contagious."

"You mean he's a plague carrier?"

"It's like a mental illness, sir. Or magic. He's as crazy as a stoat, but... once they've been around him for a while, people start seeing the world the way he does. All big and simple. And they want to be part of it."

Lord Vetinari looked at his fingernails. "But I understood that those men had settled down and were immensely rich and powerful," he said. "That's what heroes want, isn't it? To crush the thrones of the world beneath their sandalled feet, as the poet puts it?"

"Yes, sir."

"So what's this? One last throw of the dice? Why?"

"I can't understand it, sir. I mean... they had it all."

"Clearly," said the Patrician. "But everything wasn't enough, was it?"

There was argument in the anteroom beyond the Patrician's Oblong Office. Every few minutes a clerk slipped in through a side door and laid another pile of papers on the desk. Lord Vetinari stared at them. Possibly, he felt, the thing to do would be to wait until the pile of international advice and demands grew as tall as Cori Celesti, and simply climb to the top of it.

Zip, zing and can-do, he thought.

So, as a man full of get up and go must do, Lord Vetinari got up and went. He unlocked a secret door in the panelling and a moment later was gliding silently through the hidden corridors of his palace.

The dungeons of the palace held a number of felons imprisoned "at his lordship's pleasure', and since Lord Vetinari was seldom very pleased they were generally in for the long haul. His destination now, though, was the strangest prisoner of all, who lived in the attic.

Leonard of Quirm had never committed a crime. He regarded his fellow man with benign interest. He was an artist and he was also the cleverest man alive, if you used the word "clever" in a specialised and technical sense. But Lord Vetinari felt that the world was not yet ready for a man who designed unthinkable weapons of war as a happy hobby. The man was, in his heart and soul, and in everything he did, an artist.

Currently, Leonard was painting a picture of a lady, from a series of sketches he had pinned up by his easel.

"Ah, my lord," he said, glancing up. "And what is the problem?"

"Is there a problem?" said Lord Vetinari.

"There generally is, my lord, when you come to see me."

"Very well," said Lord Vetinari. "I wish to get several people to the centre of the world as soon as possible."

"Ah, yes," said Leonard. "There is much treacherous terrain between here and there. Do you think I have the smile right? I've never been very good at smiles."

"I said —"

"Do you wish them to arrive alive?"

"What? Oh... yes. Of course. And fast."

Leonard painted on, in silence. Lord Vetinari knew better than to interrupt.

"And do you wish them to return?" said the artist, after a while. "You know, perhaps I should show the teeth. I believe I understand teeth."

"Returning them would be a pleasant bonus, yes."

"This is a vital journey?"

"If it is not successful, the world will end."

"Ah. Quite vital, then." Leonard laid down his brush and stood back, looking critically at his picture. "I shall require the use of several sailing ships and a large barge," he said, after a while. "And I will make a list of other materials for you."

"A sea voyage?"

"To begin with, my lord."

"Are you sure you don't want further time to think?" said Lord Vetinari.

"Oh, to sort out the fine detail, yes. But I believe I already have the essential idea."

Vetinari looked up at the ceiling of the workroom and the armada of paper shapes and bat-winged devices and other aerial extravaganzas that hung there, turning gently in the breeze.

"This doesn't involve some kind of flying machine, does it?" he said suspiciously.

"Um... why do you ask?"

"Because the destination is a very high place, Leonard, and your flying machines have an inevitable downwards component."

"Yes, my lord. But I believe that sufficient down eventually becomes up, my lord."

"Ah. Is this philosophy?"

"Practical philosophy, my lord."

"Nevertheless, I find myself amazed, Leonard, that you appear to have come up with a solution just as soon as I presented the problem..."

Leonard of Quirm cleaned his brush. "I always say, my lord, that a problem correctly posed contains its own solution. But it is true to say that I have given some thought to issues of this nature. I do, as you know, experiment with devices... which of course, obedient to your views on this matter, I subsequently dismantle because there are, indeed, evil men in the world who might stumble upon them and pervert their use. You were kind enough to give me a room with unlimited views of the sky, and I... notice things. Oh... I shall require several dozen swamp dragons, too. No, that should be... more than a hundred, I think."

"Ah, you intend to build a ship that can be drawn into the sky by dragons?" said Lord Vetinari, mildly relieved. "I recall an old story about a ship that was pulled by swans and flew all the way to —"

"Swans, I fear, would not work. But your surmise is broadly correct, my lord. Well done. Two hundred dragons, I suggest, to be on the safe side."

"That at least is not a difficulty. They are becoming rather a pest."

"And the help of, oh, sixty apprentices and journeymen from the Guild of Cunning Artificers. Perhaps there should be a hundred. They will need to work round the clock."

"Apprentices? But I can see to it that the finest craftsmen —"

Leonard held up a hand.

"Not craftsmen, my lord," he said. "I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible."

The Horde found Cohen sitting on an ancient burial mound a little way from the camp.

There were a lot of them in this area. The members of the Horde had seen them before, sometimes, on their various travels across the world. Here and there an ancient stone would poke through the snow, carved in a language none of them recognised. They were very old. None of the Horde had ever considered cutting into a mound to see what treasures might lie within. Partly this was because they had a word for people who used shovels, and that word was 'slave'. But mainly it was because, despite their calling, they had a keen moral Code, even if it wasn't the sort adopted by nearly everyone else, and this Code led them to have a word for anyone who disturbed a burial mound. That word was 'die!'.

The Horde, each member a veteran of a thousand hopeless charges, nevertheless advanced cautiously towards Cohen, who was sitting cross-legged in the snow. His sword was thrust deep into a drift. He had a distant, worrying expression.

"Coming to have some dinner, old friend?" said Caleb.

"It's walrus," said Boy Willie. "Again."

Cohen grunted.

"I havfen't finiffed," he said, indistinctly.

"Finished what, old friend?"

"Rememb'rin'," said Cohen.

"Remembering who?"

"The hero who waff buried here, all right?"

"Who was he?"

"Dunno."

"What were his people?"

"Fearch me," said Cohen.

"Did he do any mighty deeds?"

"Couldn't fay."

"Then why— ?"

"Fomeone 'f got to remember the poor bugger!"

"You don't know anything about him!"

"I can ftill remember him!"

The rest of the Horde exchanged glances. This was going to be a difficult adventure. It was a good job that it was to be the last.

"You ought to come and have a word with that bard we captured," said Caleb. "He's getting on my nerves. He don't seem to understand what he's about."

"He'f juft got to write the faga afterwardf," said Cohen flatly and damply. A thought appeared to strike him. He started to pat various parts of his clothing, which, given the amount of clothing, didn't take long.

"Yeah, well, this isn't your basic heroic saga kind of bard, y'see," said Caleb, as his leader continued the search. "I told you he wasn't the right sort when we grabbed him. He's more the kind of bard you want if you need some ditty being sung to a girl. We're talking flowers and spring here, boss."

"Ah, got 'em," said Cohen. From a bag on his belt he produced a set of dentures, carved from the diamond teeth of trolls. He inserted them in his mouth, and gnashed them a few times. "That's better. What were you saying?"

"He's not a proper bard, boss."

Cohen shrugged. "He'll just have to learn fast, then. He's got to be better'n the ones back in the Empire. They don't have a clue about poems longer'n seventeen syllables. At least this one's from Ankh-Morpork. He must've heard about sagas."

"I said we should've stopped off at Whale Bay," said Truckle. "Icy wastes, freezing nights... good saga country."

"Yeah, if you like blubber." Cohen drew his sword from the snowdrift. "I reckon I'd better go and take the lad's mind off of flowers, then."

"It appears that things revolve around the Disc," said Leonard. "This is certainly the case with the sun and the moon. And also, if you recall... the Maria Pesto?"

"The ship they said went right under the Disc?" said Archchancellor Ridcully.

"Quite. Known to be blown over the Rim near the Bay of Mante during a dreadful storm, and seen by fishermen rising above the Rim near TinLing some days later, where it crashed down upon a reef. There was only one survivor, whose dying words were... rather strange."

"I remember," said Ridcully. "He said, "My God, it's full of elephants!""

"It is my view that with sufficient thrust and a lateral component a craft sent off the edge of the world would be swung underneath by the massive attraction and rise on the far side." said Leonard, "probably to a sufficient height to allow it to glide down to anywhere on the surface."

The wizards stared at the blackboard. Then, as one wizard, they turned to Ponder Stibbons, who was scribbling in his notebook.

"What was that about, Ponder?"

Ponder stared at his notes. Then he stared at Leonard. Then he stared at Ridcully.

"Er... yes. Possibly. Er... if you fall over the edge fast enough, the... world pulls you back... and you go on falling but it's all round the world."

"You're saying that by falling off the world we — and by we, I hasten to point out, I don't actually include myself — we can end up in the sky?" said the Dean.

"Um... yes. After all, the sun does the same thing every day..."

The Dean looked enraptured. "Amazing!" he said. "Then... you could get an army into the heart of enemy territory! No fortress would be safe! You could rain fire down on to —"

He caught the look in Leonard's eye.

"— on to bad people," he finished, lamely.

"That would not happen," said Leonard severely. "Ever!"

"Could the... thing you are planning land on Cori Celesti?" said Lord Vetinari.

"Oh, certainly there should be suitable snowfields up there," said Leonard. "If there are not, I feel sure I can devise some appropriate landing method. Happily, as you have pointed out, things in the air have a tendency to come down."

Ridcully was about to make an appropriate comment, but stopped himself. He knew Leonard's reputation. This was a man who could invent seven new things before breakfast, including two new ways with toast. This man had invented the ball-bearing, such an obvious device that no one had thought of it. That was the very centre of his genius — he invented things that anyone could have thought of, and men who can invent things that anyone could have thought of are very rare men.

This man was so absent-mindedly clever that he could paint pictures that didn't just follow you around the room but went home with you and did the washing-up.

Some people are confident because they are fools. Leonard had the look of someone who was confident because, so far, he'd never found a reason not to be. He would step off a high building in the happy state of mind of someone who intended to deal with the problem of the ground when it presented itself.

And might.

"What do you need from us?" said Ridcully.

"Well, the... thing cannot operate by magic. Magic will be unreliable near the Hub, I understand. But can you supply me with wind?"

"You have certainly chosen the right people," said Lord Vetinari. And it seemed to the wizards that there was just too long a pause before he went on, "They are highly skilled in weather manipulation."

"A severe gale would be helpful at the launch..." Leonard continued.

"I think I can say without fear of contradiction that our wizards can supply wind in practically unlimited amounts," said the Patrician. "Is that not so, Archchancellor?"

"I am forced to agree, my lord."

"Then if we can rely on a stiff following breeze. I am sure —"

"Just a moment, just a moment," said the Dean, who rather felt the wind comment had been directed at him. "What do we know of this man? He makes... devices, and paints pictures, does he? Well, I'm sure this is all very nice, but we all know about artists, don't we? Flibbertigibbets, to a man. And what about Bloody Stupid Johnson? Remember some of the things he built?[4] I'm sure Mr da Quirm draws lovely pictures, but I for one would need a little more evidence of his amazing genius before we entrust the world to his... device. Show me one thing he can do that anyone couldn't do, if they had the time."

"I have never considered myself a genius," said Leonard, looking down bashfully and doodling on the paper in front of him.

"Well, if I was a genius I think I'd know it —" the Dean began, and stopped.

Absent-mindedly, while barely paying attention to what he was doing, Leonard had drawn a perfect circle.

Lord Vetinari found it best to set up a committee system. More of the ambassadors from other countries had arrived at the university, and more heads of the Guilds were pouring in, and every single one of them wanted to be involved in the decision-making process without necessarily going through the intelligence-using process first.

About seven committees, he considered, should be about right. And when, ten minutes later, the first sub-committee had miraculously budded off, he took aside a few chosen people into a small room, set up the Miscellaneous Committee, and locked the door.

"The flying ship will need a crew, I'm told," he said. "It can carry three people. Leonard will have to go because, to be frank, he will be working on it even as it departs. And the other two?"

"There should be an assassin," said Lord Downey of the Assassins" Guild.

"No. If Cohen and his friends were easy to assassinate, they would have been dead long ago," said Lord Vetinari.

"Perhaps a woman's touch?" said Mrs Palm, head of the Guild of Seamstresses. "I know they are elderly gentlemen, but my members are —"

"I think the problem there, Mrs Palm, is that although the Horde are apparently very appreciative of the company of women, they don't listen to anything they say. Yes, Captain Carrot?"

Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of the City Watch was standing to attention, radiating keenness and a hint of soap.

"I volunteer to go, sir," he said.

"Yes, I thought you probably would."

"Is this a matter for the Watch?" said the lawyer Mr Slant. "Mr Cohen is simply returning property to its original owner."

"That is an insight which had not hitherto occurred to me," said Lord Vetinari smoothly. "However, the City Watch would not be the men I think they are if they couldn't think of a reason to arrest anyone. Commander Vimes?"

"Conspiracy to make an affray should do it," said the head of the Watch, lighting a cigar.

"And Captain Carrot is a persuasive young man," said Lord Vetinari.

"With a big sword," grumbled Mr Slant.

"Persuasion comes in many forms," said Lord Vetinari. "No, I agree with Archchancellor Ridcully, sending Captain Carrot would be an excellent idea."

"What? Did I say something?" said Ridcully.

"Do you think that sending Captain Carrot would be an excellent idea?"

"What? Oh. Yes. Good lad. Keen. Got a sword."

"Then I agree with you," said Lord Vetinari, who knew how to work a committee. "We must make haste, gentlemen. The flotilla needs to leave tomorrow. We need a third member of the crew —"

There was a knock at the door. Vetinari signalled to a college porter to open it.

The wizard known as Rincewind lurched into the room, white-faced, and stopped in front of the table.

"I do not wish to volunteer for this mission," he said.

"I beg your pardon?" said Lord Vetinari.

"I do not wish to volunteer, sir."

"No one was asking you to."

Rincewind wagged a weary finger. "Oh, but they will, sir, they will. Someone will say: hey, that Rincewind fella, he's the adventurous sort, he knows the Horde, Cohen seems to like him, he knows all there is to know about cruel and unusual geography, he'd be just the job for something like this." He sighed. "And then I'll run away, and probably hide in a crate somewhere that'll be loaded on to the flying machine in any case."

"Will you?"

"Probably, sir. Or there'll be a whole string of accidents that end up causing the same thing. Trust me, sir. I know how my life works. So I thought I'd better cut through the whole tedious business and come along and tell you I don't wish to volunteer."

"I think you've left out a logical step somewhere," said the Patrician.

"No, sir. It's very simple. I'm volunteering. I just don't wish to. But, after all, when did that ever have anything to do with anything?"

"He's got a point, you know," said Ridcully. "He seems to come back from all sorts of —"

"You see?" Rincewind gave Lord Vetinari a jaded smile. "I've been living my life for a long time. I know how it works."

There were always robbers near the Hub. There were pickings to be had among the lost valleys and forbidden temples, and also among the less prepared adventurers. Too many people, when listing all the perils to be found in the search for lost treasure or ancient wisdom, had forgotten to put at the top of the list "the man who arrived just before you".

One such party was patrolling its favourite area when it espied, first, a well-equipped warhorse tethered to a frost-shrivelled tree. Then it saw a fire, burning in a small hollow out of the wind, with a small pot bubbling beside it. Finally it saw the woman. She was attractive or, at least, had been conventionally so perhaps thirty years ago. Now she looked like the teacher you wished you'd had in your first year at school, the one with the understanding approach to life's little accidents, such as a shoe full of wee.

She had a blanket around her to keep out the cold. She was knitting. Stuck in the snow beside her was the largest sword the robbers had ever seen.

Intelligent robbers would have started to count up the incongruities here.

These, however, were the other kind, the kind for whom evolution was invented.

The woman glanced up, nodded at them, and went on with her knitting.

"Well now, what have we here?" said the leader. "Are you —"

"Hold this, will you?" said the old woman, standing up. "Over your thumbs, young man. It won't take a moment for me to wind a fresh ball. I was hoping someone would drop by."

She held out a skein of wool.

The robber took it uncertainly, aware of the grins on the faces of his men. But he opened his arms with what he hoped was a suitably evil little-does-she-suspect look on his face.

"That's right," said the old woman, standing back. She kicked him viciously in the groin in an incredibly efficient if unladylike way, reached down as he toppled, caught up the cauldron, flung it accurately at the face of the first henchman, and picked up her knitting before he fell.

The two surviving robbers hadn't had time to move, but then one unfroze and leapt for the sword. He staggered back under its weight, but the blade was long and reassuring.

"Aha!" he said, and grunted as he raised the sword. "How the hell did you carry this, old woman?"

"It's not my sword," she said. "It belonged to the man over there."

The man risked a look sideways. A pair of feet in armoured sandals were just visible behind a rock. They were very big feet.

But I've got a weapon, he thought. And then he thought: so did he.

The old woman sighed and drew two knitting needles from the ball of wool. The light glinted on them, and the blanket slid away from her shoulders and fell on to the snow.

"Well, gentlemen?" she said.

Cohen pulled the gag off the minstrel's mouth. The man stared at him in terror.

"What's your name, son?" said Cohen.

"You kidnapped me! I was walking along the street and —"

"How much?" said Cohen.

"What?"

"How much to write me a saga?"

"You stink!"

"Yeah, it's the walrus," said Cohen evenly. "It's a bit like garlic in that respect. Anyway... a saga, that's what I want. And what you want is a big bag of rubies, not unadjacent in size to the rubies what I have here."

He upended a leather bag into the palm of his hand. The stones were so big the snow glowed red. The musician stared at them.

"You got — what's that word, Truckle?" said Cohen.

"Art," said Truckle.

"You got art, and we got rubies. We give you rubies, you give us art," said Cohen. "End of problem, right?"

"Problem?" The rubies were hypnotic.

"Well, mainly the problem you'll have if you tell me you can't write me a saga," said Cohen, still in a pleasant tone of voice.

"But... look, I'm sorry, but... sagas are just primitive poems, aren't they?" The wind, never ceasing here near the Hub, had several seconds in which to produce its more forlorn yet threatening whistle.

"It'll be a long walk to civilisation, all by yourself," said Truckle, at length.

"Without yer feet," said Boy Willie.

"Please!"

"Nah, nah, lads, we don't want to do that to the boy," said Cohen. "He's a bright lad, got a great future ahead of him..." He took a pull of his home-rolled cigarette and added, "up until now. Nah, I can see he's thinking about it. A heroic saga, lad. It'll be the most famousest one ever."

"What about?"

"Us."

"You? But you're all ol—"

The minstrel stopped. Even after a life that had hitherto held no danger greater than a hurled meat bone at a banquet, he could recognise sudden death when he saw it. And he saw it now. Age hadn't weakened here — well, except in one or two places. Mostly, it had hardened.

"I wouldn't know how to compose a saga," he said feebly.

"We'll help," said Truckle.

"We know lots," said Boy Willie.

"Been in most of 'em," said Cohen.

The minstrel's thoughts ran like this: These men are rubies insane. They are rubies sure to kill me. Rubies. They've dragged me rubies all the rubies rubies.

They want to give me a big bag of rubies rubies...

"I suppose I could extend my repertoire," he mumbled. A look at their faces made him readjust his vocabulary. "All right, I'll do it," he said. A tiny bit of honesty, though, survived even the glow of the jewels. "I'm not the world's greatest minstrel, you know."

"You will be after you write this saga," said Cohen, untying his ropes.

"Well... I hope you like it..."

Cohen grinned again. "'S not up to us to like it. We won't hear it," he said.

"What? But you just said you wanted me to write you a saga —"

"Yeah, yeah. But it's gonna be the saga of how we died."

It was a small flotilla that set sail from Ankh-Morpork next day. Things had happened quickly. It wasn't that the prospect of the end of the world was concentrating minds unduly, because that is a general and universal danger that people find hard to imagine. But the Patrician was being rather sharp with people, and that is a specific and highly personal danger and people had no problem relating to it at all.

The barge, under whose huge tarpaulin something was already taking shape, wallowed between the boats. Lord Vetinari went aboard only once, and looked gloomily at the vast piles of material that littered the deck.

"This is costing us a considerable amount of money," he told Leonard, who had set up an easel. "I just hope there will be something to show for it."

"The continuation of the species, perhaps," said Leonard, completing a complex drawing and handing it to an apprentice.

"Obviously that, yes."

"We shall learn many new things," said Leonard, "that I am sure will be of immense benefit to posterity. For example, the survivor of the Maria Pesto reported that things floated around in the air as if they had become extremely light, so I have devised this."

He reached down and picked up what looked, to Lord Vetinari, like a perfectly normal kitchen utensil.

"It's a frying pan that sticks to anything," he said, proudly. "I got the idea from observing a type of teazel, which —"

"And this will be useful?" said Lord Vetinari.

"Oh, indeed. We will need to eat meals and cannot have hot fat floating around. The small details matter, my lord. I have also devised a pen which writes upside down."

"Oh. Could you not simply turn the paper up the other way?"

The line of sledges moved across the snow.

"It's damn cold," said Caleb.

"Feeling your age, are you?" said Boy Willie.

"You're as old as you feel, I always say."

"Whut?"

"HE SAYS YOU'RE AS OLD AS YOU FEEL, HAMISH!"

"Whut? Feelin' whut?"

"I don't think I've become old," said Boy Willie. "Not your actual old. Just more aware of where the next lavatory is."

"The worst bit," said Truckle, "is when young people come and sing happy songs at you."

"Why're they so happy?" said Caleb.

"'Cos they're not you, I suppose."

Fine, sharp snow crystals, blown off the mountain tops, hissed across their vision. In deference to their profession, the Horde mostly wore tiny leather loincloths and bits and pieces of fur and chainmail. In deference to their advancing years, and entirely without comment among themselves, these has been underpinned now with long woolly combinations and various strange elasticated things. They were dealing with Time as they had dealt with nearly everything else in their lives, as something you charged at and tried to kill.

At the front of the party, Cohen was giving the minstrel some tips.

"First off, you got to describe how you feel about the saga," he said. "How singing it makes your blood race and you can hardly contain yourself that... you got to tell 'em what a great saga it's gonna be... understand?"

"Yes, yes... I think so... and then I say who you are..." said the minstrel, scribbling furiously.

"Nah, then you say what the weather was like."

"You mean like, 'It was a bright day'?"

"Nah, nah, nah. You got to talk saga. So, first off, you gotta put the sentences the wrong way round."

"You mean like, 'Bright was the day'?"

"Right! Good! I knew you was clever."

"Clever you was, you mean!" said the minstrel, before he could stop himself.

There was a moment of heart-stopping uncertainty, and then Cohen grinned and slapped him on the back. It was like being hit with a shovel.

"That's the style! What else, now... ? Ah, yes... no one ever talks, in sagas. They always spakes."

"Spakes?"

"Like 'Up spake Wulf the Sea-rover', see? An'... an'... an' people are always the something. Like me, I'm Cohen the Barbarian, right? But it could be &'Cohen the Bold-hearted' or 'Cohen the Slayer of Many', or any of that class of a thing."

"Er... why are you doing this?" said the minstrel. "I ought to put that in. You're going to return fire to the gods?"

"Yeah. With interest."

"But... why?"

"'Cos we've seen a lot of old friends die," said Caleb.

"That's right," said Boy Willie. "And we never saw no big wimmin on flying horses come and take 'em to the Halls of Heroes."

"When Old Vincent died, him being one of us," said Boy Willie, "where was the Bridge of Frost to take him to the Feast of the Gods, eh? No, they got him, they let him get soft with comfy beds and someone to chew his food for him. They nearly got us all."

"Hah! Milky drinks!" spat Truckle.

"Whut?" said Hamish, waking up.

"HE ASKED WHY WE WANT TO RETURN FIRE TO THE GODS, HAMISH!"

"Eh? Someone's got to do it!" cackled Hamish.

"Because it's a big world and we ain't seen it all," said Boy Willie.

"Because the buggers are immortal," said Caleb.

"Because of the way my back aches on chilly nights," said Truckle.

The minstrel looked at Cohen, who was staring at the ground.

"Because..." said Cohen, "because... they've let us grow old."

At which point, the ambush was sprung. Snowdrifts erupted. Huge figures raced towards the Horde. Swords were in skinny, spotted hands with the speed born of experience. Clubs were swung —

"Hold everything!" shouted Cohen. It was a voice of command.

The fighters froze. Blades trembled an inch away from throat and torso.

Cohen looked up into the cracked and craggy features of an enormous troll, its club raised to smash him.

"Don't I know you?" he said.

The wizards were working in relays. Ahead of the fleet, an area of sea was mill-pond calm. From behind, came a steady unwavering breeze. The wizards were good at wind, weather being a matter not of force but of lepidoptery. As Archchancellor Ridcully said, you just had to know where the damn butterflies were.

And therefore some million-to-one chance must have sent the sodden log under the barge. The shock was slight, but Ponder Stibbons, who had been carefully rolling the omniscope across the deck, ended up on his back surrounded by twinkling shards.

Archchancellor Ridcully hurried across the deck, his voice full of concern.

"Is it badly damaged? That cost a hundred thousand dollars, Mr Stibbons! Oh, look at it! A dozen pieces!"

"I'm not badly hurt, Archchancellor —"

"Hundreds of hours of time wasted! And now we won't be able to watch the progress of the flight. Are you listening, Mr Stibbons?"

Ponder wasn't. He was holding two of the shards and staring at them.

"I think I may have stumbled, haha, on an amazing piece of serendipity, Archchancellor."

"What say?"

"Has anyone ever broken an omniscope before, sir?"

"No, young man. And that is because other people are careful with expensive equipment!"

"Er... would you care to look in this piece, sir?" said Ponder urgently. "I think it's very important you look at this piece, sir."

Up on the lower slopes of Cori Celesti, it was time for old times. Ambushers and ambushees had lit a fire.

"So how come you left the Evil Dark Lord business, Harry?" said Cohen.

"Werl, you know how it is these days," said Evil Harry Dread.

The Horde nodded. They knew how it was these days.

"People these days, when they're attacking your Dark Evil Tower, the first thing they do is block up your escape tunnel," said Evil Harry.

"Bastards!" said Cohen. "You've got to let the Dark Lord escape. Everyone knows that."

"That's right," said Caleb. "Got to leave yourself some work for tomorrow."

"And it wasn't as if I didn't play fair." said Evil Harry. "I mean, I always left a secret back entrance to my Mountain of Dread, I employed really stupid people as cell guards —"

"Dat's me," said the enormous troll proudly.

"— that was you, right, and I always made sure all my henchmen had the kind of helmets that covered the whole face, so an enterprising hero could disguise himself in one, and those come damn expensive, let me tell you."

"Me and Evil Harry go way back," said Cohen, rolling a cigarette. "I knew him when he was starting up with just two lads and his Shed of Doom."

"And Slasher, the Steed of Terror," Evil Harry pointed out.

"Yes, but he was a donkey, Harry," Cohen pointed out.

"He had a very nasty bite on him, though. He'd take your finger off as soon as look at you."

"Didn't I fight you when you were the Doomed Spider God?" said Caleb.

"Probably. Everyone else did. They were great days," said Harry. "Giant spiders is always reliable, better'n octopussies, even." He sighed. "And then, of course, it all changed."

They nodded. It had all changed.

"They said I was an evil stain covering the face of the world," said Harry. "Not a word about bringing jobs to areas of traditionally high unemployment. And then of course the big boys moved in, and you can't compete with an out-of-town site. Anyone heard of Ning the Uncompassionate?"

"Sort of," said Boy Willie. "I killed him."

"You couldn't have done! What was it he always said? 'I shall revert to this vicinity!'"

"Sort of hard to do that," said Boy Willie, pulling out a pipe and beginning to fill it with tobacco, "when your head's nailed to a tree."

"How about Pamdar the Witch Queen?" said Evil Harry. "Now there was —"

"Retired," said Cohen.

"She'd never retire!"

"Got married," Cohen insisted. "To Mad Hamish."

"Whut?"

"I SAID YOU MARRIED PAMDAR, HAMISH," Cohen shouted.

"Hehehehe, I did that! Whut?"

"That was some time ago, mark you," said Boy Willie. "I don't think it lasted."

"But she was a devil woman!"

"We all get older, Harry. She runs a shop now. Pam's Pantry. Makes marmalade," said Cohen.

"What? She used to queen it on a throne on top of a pile of skulls!"

"I didn't say it was very good marmalade."

"How about you, Cohen?" said Evil Harry. "I heard you were an Emperor."

"Sounds good, doesn't it?" said Cohen mournfully. "But you know what? It's dull. Everyone creepin' around bein' respectful, no one to fight, and those soft beds give you backache. All that money, and nothin' to spend it on 'cept toys. It sucks all the life right out of you, civilisation."

"It killed Old Vincent the Ripper," said Boy Willie. "He choked to death on a concubine."

There was no sound but the hiss of snow in the fire and a number of people thinking fast.

"I think you mean cucumber," said the bard.

"That's right, cucumber," said Boy Willie. "I've never been good at them long words."

"Very important difference in a salad situation." said Cohen. He turned back to Evil Harry. "That's no way for a hero to die, all soft and fat and eating big dinners. A hero should die in battle."

"Yeah, but you lads've never got the hang of dying," Evil Harry pointed out.

"That's because we haven't picked the right enemies," said Cohen. "This time we're going to see the gods." He tapped the barrel he was sitting on, and the other members of the Horde winced when he did so. "Got something here that belongs to them." Cohen added.

He glanced around the group and noted some almost imperceptible nods.

"Why don't you come with us, Evil Harry?" he said. "You can bring your evil henchmen."

Evil Harry drew himself up. "Hey, I'm a Dark Lord! How'd it look if I was to go around with a bunch of heroes?"

"It wouldn't look anything," said Cohen sharply. "And I'll tell you for why, shall I? We're the last, see. Us "n" you. No one else cares. There's no more heroes, Evil Harry. No more villains, neither."

"Oh, there's always villains!" said Evil Harry.

"No, there's vicious evil underhand bastards, true enough. But they use laws now. They'd never call themselves Evil Harry."

"Men who don't know the Code," said Boy Willie. Everyone nodded. You mightn't live by the law but you had to live by the Code.

"Men with bits of paper," said Caleb.

There was another group nod. The Horde were not great readers. Paper was the enemy, and so were the men who wielded it. Paper crept around you and took over the world.

"We always liked you, Harry," said Cohen. "You played it by the rules. How about it... are you coming with us?"

Evil Harry looked embarrassed. "Well, I'd like to," he said. "But... well, I'm Evil Harry, right? You can't trust me an inch. First chance I get, I'll betray you all, stab you in the back or something... I'd have to, see? Of course, if it was up to me, it'd be different... but I've got a reputation to think about, right? I'm Evil Harry. Don't ask me to come."

"Well spake," said Cohen. "I like a man I can't trust. You know where you stand with an untrustworthy man. It's the ones you ain't never sure about who give you grief. You come with us, Harry. You're one of us. And your lads, too. New ones, I see..." Cohen raised his eyebrows.

"Well, yeah, you know how it is with the really stupid henchmen," said Evil. "This is Slime —"

"... nork nork," said Slime.

"Ah, one of the old Stupid Lizard Men," said Cohen. "Good to see there's one left. Hey, two left. And this one is— ?"

"... nork nork."

"He's Slime, too." said Evil Harry, patting the second lizard man gingerly to avoid the spikes. "Never good at remembering more than one name, your basic lizard man. Over here we have..." He nodded at something vaguely like a dwarf, who gave him an imploring look.

"You're Armpit," prompted Evil Harry.

"Your Armpit," said Armpit gratefully.

"... nork nork," said one of the Slimes, in case this remark had been addressed to him.

"Well done, Harry," said Cohen. "It's damn hard to find a really stupid dwarf."

"Wasn't easy, I can tell you." Harry admitted proudly as he moved on. "And this is Butcher."

"Good name, good name," said Cohen, looking up at the enormous fat man. "Your jailer, right?"

"Took a lot of finding," said Evil Harry, while Butcher grinned happily at nothing. "Believes anything anyone tells him, can't see through the most ridiculous disguise, would let a transvestite washerwomen go free even if she had a beard you could camp in, falls asleep real easily on a chair near the bars and —"

"— carries his keys on a big hook on his belt so's they can be easily lifted off!" said Cohen. "Classic. A master touch, that. And you've got a troll, I see."

"Dat's me," said the troll.

"... nork, nork."

"Dat's me."

"Well, you've got to have a troll, haven't you?" said Evil Harry. "Bit brighter than I'd like, but he's got no sense of direction and can't remember his name."

"And what do we have here?" said Cohen. "A real old zombie? Where did you dig him up? I like a man who's not afraid to let all his flesh fall off."

"Gak," said the zombie.

"No tongue, eh?" said Cohen. "Don't worry, lad, a blood-curdling screech is all you need. And a few bits of wire, by the look of it. It's all a matter of style."

"Dat's me."

"... nork nork."

"Gak."

"Dat's me."

"Your Armpit."

"They must make you proud. I don't know when I've ever seen a more stupid bunch of henchmen," said Cohen, admiring. "Harry, you're like a refreshin' fart in a roomful of roses. You bring 'em all along. I wouldn't hear of you staying behind."

"Nice to be appreciated," said Evil Harry, looking down and blushing.

"And what else've you got to look forward to, anyway?" said Cohen. "Who really appreciates a good Dark Lord these days? The world's too complicated now. It don't belong to the likes of us any more... it chokes us to death with cucumbers."

"What are you actually going to do, Cohen?" said Evil Harry.

"... nork, nork."

"Well. I reckon it's time to go out like we started," said Cohen. "One last roll of the dice." He tapped the keg again. "It's time," he said, "to give something back."

"... nork, nork."

"Shut up."

At night rays of light shone through holes and gaps in the tarpaulin. Lord Vetinari wondered if Leonard was getting any sleep. It was quite possible that the man had designed some sort of contrivance to do it for him.

At the moment, there were other things to concern him.

The dragons were travelling in a ship of their own. It was far too dangerous to have them on board anything else. Ships were made of wood, and even when in a good mood dragons puffed little balls of fire. When they were over-excited, they exploded.

"They will be all right, won't they?" he said, keeping well back from the cages. "If any of them are harmed I shall be in serious trouble with the Sunshine Sanctuary in Ankh-Morpork. This is not a prospect I relish, I assure you."

"Mr da Quinn says there is no reason why they should not all get back safely, sir."

"And would you, Mister Stibbons, trust yourself in a contrivance pushed along by dragons?"

Ponder swallowed. "I'm not the stuff of heroes, sir."

"And what causes this lack in you, may I ask?"

"I think it's because I've got an active imagination."

This seemed a good explanation, Lord Vetinari mused as he walked away. The difference was that while other people imagined in terms of thoughts and pictures, Leonard imagined in terms of shape and space. His daydreams came with a cutting list and assembly instructions.

Lord Vetinari found himself hoping more and more for the success of his other plan. When all else fails, pray...

"All right now, lads, settle down. Settle down." Hughnon Ridcully, Chief Priest of Blind Io, looked down at the multitude of priests and priestesses that filled the huge Temple of Small Gods.

He shared many of the characteristics of his brother Mustrum. He also saw his job as being, essentially, one of organiser. There were plenty of people who were good at the actual believing, and he left them to it. It took a lot more than prayer to make sure the laundry got done and the building was kept in repair.

There were so many gods now... at least two thousand. Many were, of course, still very small. But you had to watch them. Gods were very much a fashion thing. Look at Om, now. One minute he was a bloodthirsty little deity in some mad hot country, and then suddenly he was one of the top gods. It had all been done by not answering prayers, but doing so in a sort of dynamic way that left open the possibility that one day he might and then there'd be fireworks. Hughnon, who had survived through decades of intense theological dispute by being a mean man at swinging a heavy thurible, was impressed by this novel technique.

And then, of course, you had your real newcomers like Amger, Goddess of Squashed Animals. Who would have thought that better roads and faster carts would have led to that? But gods grew bigger when called upon at need, and enough minds had cried out, "Oh god, what was that I hit?"

"Brethren!" he shouted, getting tired of waiting. "And sistren!"

The hubbub died away. A few flakes of dry and crumbling paint drifted down from the ceiling.

"Thank you," said Ridcully. "Now, can you please listen? My colleagues and I —" and here he indicated the senior clergy behind him — "have, I assure you, been working for some time on this idea, and there is no doubt that it is theologically sound. Can we please get on?"

He could still sense the annoyance among the priesthood. Born leaders didn't like being led.

"If we don't try this," he tried, "the godless wizards may succeed with their plans. And a fine lot of mugginses we will look."

"This is all very well, but the form of things is important!" snapped a priest. "We can't all pray at once! You know the gods don't like ecumenicalism! And what form of words will we use, pray?"

"I would have felt that a short non-controversial —" Hughnon Ridcully paused. In front of him were priests forbidden by holy edict from eating broccoli, priests who required unmarried girls to cover their ears lest they inflame the passions of other men, and priests who worshipped a small shortbread-and-raisin biscuit. Nothing was non-controversial.

"You see, it does appear that the world is going to end," he said weakly.

"Well? Some of us have been expecting that for some considerable time! It will be a judgement on mankind for its wickedness!"

"And broccoli!"

"And the short haircuts girls are wearing today!"

"Only the biscuits will be saved!"

Ridcully waved his crozier frantically for silence.

"But this isn't the wrath of the gods," he said. "I did tell you! It's the work of a man!"

"Ah, but he may be the hand of a god!"

"It's Cohen the Barbarian," said Ridcully.

"Even so, he might —"

The speaker in the crowd was nudged by the priest next to him.

"Hang on..."

There was a roar of excited conversation. There were few temples that hadn't been robbed or despoiled in a long life of adventuring, and the priests soon agreed that no god ever had anything in his hand that looked like Cohen the Barbarian. Hughnon turned his eyes up to the ceiling, with its beautiful but decrepit panorama of gods and heroes. Life must be a lot easier for gods, he decided.

"Very well," said one of the objectors, haughtily. "In that case, I think perhaps we could, in these special circumstances, get around a table just this once."

"Ah, that is a good —" Ridcully began.

"But of course we will need to give some very serious consideration as to what shape the table is going to be."

Ridcully looked blank for a moment. His expression did not change as he leaned down to one of his sub-deacons and said, "Scallop, please have someone ran along and tell my wife to pack my overnight bag, will you? I think this is going to take a little while..."

The central spire of Cori Celesti seemed to get no closer day by day.

"Are you sure Cohen's all right in the head?" said Evil Harry, as he helped Boy Willie manoeuvre Hamish's wheelchair over the ice.

"'Ere, are you tryin' to spread discontent among the troops, Harry?"

"Well, I did warn you, Will. I am a Dark Lord. I've got to keep in practice. And we're following a leader who keeps forgetting where he put his false teeth."

"Whut?" said Mad Hamish.

"I'm just saying that blowing up the gods could cause trouble," said Evil Harry. "It's a bit... disrespectful."

"You must've defiled a few temples in your time, Harry?"

"I ran 'em, Will, I ran 'em. I was a Mad Demon Lord for a while, you know. I had a Temple of Terror."

"Yes, on your allotment," said Boy Willie, grinning.

"That's right, that's right, rub it in," said Harry sulkily. "Just because I was never in the big league, just because —"

"Now, now, Harry, you know we don't think like that. We respected you. You knew the Code. You kept the faith. Well, Cohen just reckons the gods've got it comin' to them. Now, me, I'm worried because there's some tough ground ahead."

Evil Harry peered along the snowy canyon.

"There's some kind of magic path leads up the mountain," Willie went on. "But there's a mass of caves before you get there."

"The Impassable Caves of Dread," said Evil Harry.

Willie looked impressed. "Heard of them, have you? Accordin' to some old legend they're guarded by a legion of fearsome monsters and some devilishly devious devices and no one has ever passed through. Oh, yeah... perilous crevasses, too. Next, we'll have to swim through underwater caverns guarded by giant man-eating fish that no man has ever yet passed. And then there's some insane monks, and a door you can pass only by solving some ancient riddle... the usual sort of stuff."

"Sounds like a big job," Evil Harry ventured.

"Well, we know the answer to the riddle," said Boy Willie. "It's 'teeth'."

"How did you find that out?"

"Didn't have to. It's always teeth in poxy old riddles," Boy Willie grunted as they heaved the wheelchair through a particularly deep drift. "But the biggest problem, is going to be getting this damn thing through all that without Hamish waking up and making trouble."

In the study of his dark house on the edge of Time, Death looked at the wooden box.

Perhaps I shall try one more time, he said.

He reached down and lifted up a small kitten, patted it on the head, lowered it gently into the box, and closed the lid.

The cat dies when the air runs out?

"I suppose it might, sir," said Albert, his manservant. "But I don't reckon that's the point. If I understand it right, you don't know if the cat's dead or alive until you look at it."

Things will have come to a pretty pass, Albert, if I did not know whether a thing was dead or alive without having to go and look.

"Er... the way the theory goes, sir, it's the act of lookin" that determines if it's alive or not."

Death looked hurt. Are you suggesting I will kill the cat just by looking at it?

"It's not quite like that, sir."

I mean, it's not as if I make faces or anything.

"To be honest with you, sir, I don't think even the wizards understand the uncertainty business." said Albert. "We didn't truck with that class of stuff in my day. If you weren't certain, you were dead."

Death nodded. It was getting hard to keep up with the times. Take parallel dimensions. Parasite dimensions, now, he understood them. He lived in one. They were simply universes that weren't quite complete in themselves and could only exist by clinging on to a host universe, like remora fish. But parallel dimensions meant that anything you did, you didn't do somewhere else.

This presented exquisite problems to a being who was, by nature, definite. It was like playing poker against an infinite number of opponents.

He opened the box and took out the kitten. It stared at him with the normal mad amazement of kittens everywhere.

I don't hold with cruelty to cats, said Death, putting it gently on the floor.

"I think the whole cat in the box idea is one of them metaphors," said Albert.

Ah. A lie.

Death snapped his fingers.

Death's study did not occupy space in the normal sense of the word. The walls and ceiling were there for decoration rather than as any kind of dimensional limit. Now they faded away and a giant hourglass filled the air.

Its dimensions would be difficult to calculate, but they could be measured in miles.

Inside, lightnings crackled among the falling sands. Outside, a giant turtle was engraved upon the glass.

I think we shall have to clear the decks for this one, said Death.

Evil Harry knelt in front of a hastily constructed altar. It consisted mostly of skulls, which were not hard to find in this cruel landscape. And now he prayed. In a long lifetime of being a Dark Lord, even in a small way, he'd picked up a few contacts on the other planes. They were... sort of gods, he supposed. They had names like Olk-Kalath the Soul Sucker, but, frankly, the overlap between demons and gods was a bit uncertain at the best of times.

"Oh, Mighty One," he began, always a safe beginning and the religious equivalent of 'To Whom It May Concern', "I have to warn you that a bunch of heroes are climbing the mountain to destroy you with returned fire. May you strike them down with wrathful lightning and then look favourably upon thy servant, i.e. Evil Harry Dread. Mail may be left with Mrs Gibbons, 12 Dolmen View, Pant-y-Girdl, Llamedos. Also if possible I should like a location with real lava pits, every other evil lord manages to get a dread lava pit even when they are on one hundred feet of bloody alluvial soil, excuse my Klatchian, this is further discrimination against the small trader, no offence meant."

He waited a moment, just in case there was any reply, sighed, and got rather shakily to his feet.

"I'm an evil, distrustful Dark Lord," he said. "What do they expect? I told 'em. I warned 'em. I mean, if it was up to me... but where'd I stand as a Dark Lord if I —"

His eye caught something pink, a little way off. He climbed a snow-covered rock for a better look.

Two minutes later the rest of the Horde had joined him and were looking at the scene reflectively, although the minstrel was being sick.

"Well, that's something you don't often see," said Cohen.

"What, a man throttled with pink knitting wool?" said Caleb.

"No, I was looking at the other two..."

"Yes, it's amazing what you can do with a knitting needle," said Cohen. He glanced back at the makeshift altar and grinned. "Did you do this, Harry? You said you wanted to be alone."

"Pink knitting wool?" said Evil Harry nervously. "Me and pink knitting wool?"

"Sorry for suggestin" it," said Cohen. "Well, we ain't got time for this. Let's go and sort out the Caves of Dread. Where's our bard? Right. Stop throwin' up and get yer notebook out. First man to be cut in half by a concealed blade is a rotten egg, okay? And, everyone... try not to wake up Hamish, all right?"

The sea was full of cool green light.

Captain Carrot sat near the prow. To the astonishment of Rincewind, who'd got out for a gloomy evening walk, he was sewing.

"It's a badge for the mission," said Carrot. "See? This is yours." He held it up.

"But what is it for?"

"Morale."

"Ah, that stuff," said Rincewind. "Well, you've got lots, Leonard doesn't need it and I've never had any."

"I know you are being good-humoured about it, but I think it's vital that there is something that holds the crew together," said Carrot, still calmly sewing.

"Yes, it's called skin. It's important to keep all of you on the inside of it."

Rincewind stared at the badge. He'd never had one before. Well, that was technically a lie... he'd had one that said 'Hello, I Am 5 Today!', which was just about the worst possible present to get when you are six. That birthday had been the rottenest day of his life.

"It needs an uplifting motto," said Carrot. "Wizards know about this sort of thing, don't they?"

"How about Morituri Nolumus Mori, that's got the right ring," said Rincewind gloomily.

Carrot's lips moved as he parsed the sentence. "We who are about to die..." he said, "but I don't recognise the rest."

"It's very uplifting," said Rincewind. "It's straight from the heart."

"Very well. Many thanks. I'll get to work on it right away," said Carrot.

Rincewind sighed. "You're finding this exciting, aren't you?" he said. "You actually are."

"It will certainly be a challenge to go where no one has gone before," said Carrot.

"Wrong! We're going where no one has come back from before." Rincewind hesitated. "Well, except me. But I didn't go that far, and I... sort of dropped on to the Disc again."

"Yes, they told me about it. What did you see?"

"My whole life, passing in front of my eyes."

"Perhaps we shall see something more interesting."

Rincewind glared at Carrot, bent once again over his sewing. Everything about the man was neat, in a workmanlike sort of way: he looked like someone who washed thoroughly. He also seemed to Rincewind to be a complete idiot with gristle between the ears. But complete idiots didn't make comments like that.

"I'm taking an iconograph and lots of paint for the imp. You know the wizards want us to make all kinds of observations?" Carrot went on. "They say it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"You're not making any friends here, you know," said Rincewind.

"Have you any idea what it is that the Silver Horde wants?"

"Drink, treasure, and women," said Rincewind. "But I think they may have eased back on the last one."

"But didn't they have more or less all of that anyway?"

Rincewind nodded. That was the puzzler. The Horde had it all. They had everything that money could buy, and since there was a lot of money on the Counterweight Continent, that was everything.

It occurred to him that when you'd had everything, all that was left was nothing.

The valley was full of cool green light, reflected off the towering ice of the central mountain. It shifted and flowed like water. Into it, grumbling and asking one another to speak up, walked the Silver Horde.

Behind them, walking almost bent double with horror and dread, white-faced, like a man who has gazed upon direful things, came the minstrel. His clothes were torn. One leg of his tights had been ripped off. He was soaking wet, although parts of his clothing were singed. The twanging remains of the lute in his trembling hand had been half bitten away. Here was a man who had truly seen life, mostly on the point of departure.

"Not very insane, as monks go," said Caleb. "More sad than mad. I've known monks that frothed."

"And some of those monsters were long past their date with the knackerman, and that's the truth," said Truckle. "Honestly, I felt embarrassed about killing them. They was older than us."

"The fish were good," said Cohen. "Real big buggers."

"Just as well, really, since we've run out of walrus," said Evil Harry.

"Wonderful display by your henchmen, Harry," said Cohen. "Stupidity wasn't the word for it. Never seen so many people hit themselves over the head with their own swords."

"They were good lads," said Harry. "Morons to the end."

Cohen grinned at Boy Willie, who was sucking a cut finger.

"Teeth," he said. "Huh... the answer is always 'teeth', is it?"

"All right, all right, sometimes it's 'tongue'," said Boy Willie. He turned to the minstrel.

"Did you get that bit where I cut up that big taranchula?" he said.

The minstrel raised his head slowly. A lute string broke.

"Mwwa," he bleated.

The rest of the Horde gathered round quickly. There was no sense in letting just one of them get the best verses.

'Remember to sing about that bit where that fish swallowed me and I cut my way out from inside, okay?'

"Mwwa..."

'And did you get that bit when I killed that big six-armed dancin' statue?'

"Mwwa..."

'What're you talkin' about? It was me what killed that statue!'

'Yeah? Well, I clove him clean in twain, mate. No one could have survived that!'

'Why didn't you just cut 'is 'ead off?'

'Couldn't. Someone'd already done that.'

"'Ere, 'e's not writin' this down! Why isn't 'e writin' this down? Cohen, you tell 'im 'e's got to write this down!"

"Let him be for a while," said Cohen. "I reckon the fish disagreed with him."

"Don't see why," said Truckle. "I pulled him out before it'd hardly chewed him. And he must've dried out nicely in that corridor. You know, the one where the flames shot up out of the floor unexpectedly."

"I reckon our bard wasn't expecting flames to shoot out of the floor unexpectedly," said Cohen.

Truckle shrugged theatrically. "Well, if you're not going to expect unexpected flames, what's the point of going anywhere?"

"And we'd have been in some strife with those gate demons from the netherworlds if Mad Hamish hadn't woken up," Cohen went on.

Hamish stirred in his wheelchair, under a pile of large fish fillets inexpertly wrapped in saffron robes.

"Whut?"

"I SAID YOU WERE GROUCHY WHAT WITH MISSING YER NAP!" Cohen shouted.

"Ach, right!"

Boy Willie rubbed his thigh. "I got to admit it, one of those monsters nearly got me," he said. "I'm going to have to give this up."

Cohen turned around quickly. "And die like old Old Vincent?" he said.

"Well, not —"

"Where would he have been if we weren't there to give him a proper funeral, eh? A great big bonfire, that's the funeral of a hero. And everyone else said it was a waste of a good boat! So stop talking like that and follow me!"

"Mw... mw... mw," the minstrel sang, and finally the words came out. "Mad! Mad! Mad! You're all stark staring mad!"

Caleb patted him gently on the shoulder as they turned to follow their leader.

"We prefer the word berserk, lad," he said.

Some things needed testing...

"I have watched the swamp dragons at night," Leonard said conversationally as Ponder Stibbons adjusted the static-firing mechanism. "And it is clear to me that the flame is quite useful to them as a means of propulsion. In a sense, a swamp dragon is a living rocket. A strange creature to have come into being on a world like ours, I have always thought. I suspect they come from elsewhere."

"They tend to explode a lot," said Ponder, standing back. The dragon in the steel cage watched him carefully.

"Bad diet," said Leonard firmly. "Possibly not what they were used to. But I am sure the mixture I have devised is both nourishing and safe and will have... usable effect..."

"But we will go and get behind the sandbags now, sir," said Ponder.

"Oh, do you really think— ?"

"Yes, sir."

With his back firmly against the sandbags, Ponder shut his eyes and pulled the string.

In front of the dragon's cage, a mirror swung down, just for a moment. And the first reaction of a male swamp dragon on seeing another male is to flame...

There was a roar. The two men peered over the barrier and saw a yellow-green lance of fire thundering out across the evening sea.

"Thirty-three seconds!" said Ponder, when it finally winked out. He leapt up.

The small dragon belched.

The flame was more or less gone, so it was the dampest explosion Ponder had ever experienced.

"Ah," said Leonard, arising from behind the sandbags and peeling a piece of scaly skin off his head. "Nearly there, I think. Just a pinch more charcoal and seaweed extract to prevent blowback."

Ponder removed his hat. What he needed right now, he felt, was a bath. And then another bath.

"I'm not exactly a rocket wizard, am I?" he said, wiping bits of dragon off his face.

But an hour later another flame lanced over the waves, thin and white with a blue core... and this time, this time, the dragon merely smiled.

"I'd rather die than sign my name," said Boy Willie.

"I'd rather face a dragon," said Caleb. "One of the proper old ones, too, not the little fireworky ones you get today."

"Once they get you signin' your name, they've got you where they want you," said Cohen.

"Too many letters," said Truckle. "All different shapes, too. I always put an X."

The Horde had stopped for a breather and a smoke on an outcrop at the end of the green valley. Snow was thick on the ground, but the air was almost mild. Already there was the prickly sensation of a high magical field.

"Readin', now," said Cohen, "that's another matter. I don't mind a man who does a bit of readin'. Now, you come across a map, as it might be, and it's got a big cross on it, well, a readin' man can tell something from that."

"What? That it's Truckle's map?" said Boy Willie.

"Exactly. Could very well be."

"I can read and write," said Evil Harry. "Sorry. Part of the job. Etiquette, too. You've got to be polite to people when you march them out on the plank over the shark tank... it makes it more evil."

"No one's blaming you, Harry," said Cohen.

"Huh, not that I could get sharks," said Harry. "I should've known better when Johnny No Hands told me they were sharks that hadn't grown all their fins yet, but all they did was swim around squeaking happily and start beggin' for fish. When I throw people into a torture tank it's to be torn to bits, not to get in touch with their inner self and be one with the cosmos."

"Shark'd be better than this fish," said Caleb, making a face.

"Nah, shark tastes like piss," said Cohen. He sniffed. "Now that..."

"Now that," said Truckle, "is what I call cookery."

They followed the smell through a maze of rocks to a cave. To the minstrel's amazement, each man drew his sword as they approached.

"You can't trust cookery," said Cohen, apparently as an attempt at an explanation.

"But you've just been fighting monstrous mad devil fish!" said the minstrel.

"No, the priests were mad, the fish were... hard to tell with fish. Anyway, you know where you stand with a mad priest, but someone cooking as well as that right up here — well, that's a mystery."

"Well?"

"Mysteries get you killed."

"You're not dead, though."

Cohen's sword swished through the air. The minstrel thought he heard it sizzle.

"I solve mysteries," he said.

"Oh. With your sword... like Carelinus untied the Tsortean Knot?"

"Don't know anything about any knots, lad."

In a clear space among the rocks, a stew was cooking over a fire and an elderly lady was working at her embroidery. It was not a scene the minstrel would have expected out here, even though the lady was somewhat... youngly dressed for a grandmother, and the message on the sampler she was sewing, surrounded by little flowers, was EAT COLD STEEL PIGDOG.

"Well, well," said Cohen, sheathing his sword. "I thought I recognised the handiwork back there. How're you doing, Vena?"

"You're looking well, Cohen," said the woman, as calmly as though she had been expecting them. "You boys want some stew?"

"Yeah," said Truckle, grinning. "Let the bard try it first, though."

"Shame on you, Truckle," said the woman, putting aside her embroidery.

"Well, you did drug me and steal a load of jewels off me last time we met..."

"That was forty years ago, man! Anyway, you left me alone to fight that band of goblins."

"I knew you'd beat the goblins, though."

"I knew you didn't need the jewels. Morning, Evil Harry. Hello, boys. Pull up a rock. Who's the thin streak of misery?"

"This is the bard," said Cohen. "Bard, this is Vena the Raven-Haired."

"What?" said the bard. "No, she's not! Even I've heard of Vena the Raven-Haired, and she's a tall young woman with — oh..."

Vena sighed. "Yes, the old stories do hang around so, don't they?" she said, patting her grey hair. "And it's Mrs McGarry now, boys."

"Yes, I heard you'd settled down," said Cohen, dipping the ladle into the stew and tasting it. "Married an innkeeper, didn't you? Hung up your sword, had kids..."

"Grandchildren," said Mrs McGarry, proudly. But then the proud smile faded. "One of them's taken over the inn, but the other's a paper-maker."

"Running an inn's a good trade," said Cohen. "But there's not much heroing in wholesale stationery. A paper cut's just not the same." He smacked his lips. "This is good stuff, girl."

"Its funny," said Vena. "I never knew I had the talent, but people will come miles for my dumplings."

"No change there, then," said Truckle the Uncivil. "Hur, hur, hur."

"Truckle," said Cohen, "remember when you told me to tell you when you were bein' too uncivil?"

"Yeah?"

"That was one of those times."

"Anyway," said Mrs McGarry, smiling sweetly at the blushing Truckle, "I was sitting around after Charlie died, and I thought, well, is this it? I've just got to wait for the Grim Reaper? And then... there was this scroll..."

"What scroll?" said Cohen and Evil Harry together. Then they stared at one another.

"Y'see," said Cohen, reaching into his pack, "I found this old scroll, showing a map of how to get to the Mountains and all the little tricks for getting past —"

"Me too," said Harry.

"You never told me!"

"I'm a Dark Lord, Cohen," said Evil Harry patiently. "I'm not supposed to be Captain Helpful."

"Tell me where you found it, at least."

"Oh, in some ancient sealed tomb we was despoilin'."

"I found mine in an old storeroom back in the Empire," said Cohen.

"Mine was left in my inn by a traveller all in black," said Mrs McGarry.

In the silence, the minstrel said, "Um? Excuse me?"

"What?" said all three together.

"Is it just me," said the minstrel, "or are we missing something here?"

"Like what?" demanded Cohen.

"Well, these scrolls all tell you how to get to the mountain, a perilous trek that no one has ever survived?"

"Yes? So?"

"So... um... who wrote the scrolls?"

Offler the Crocodile looked up from the playing board which was, in fact, the world.

"All right, who doth he belong to?" he lisped. "We've got a clever one here."

There was a general craning of necks among the assembled deities, and then one put up his hand.

"And you are... ?" said Offler.

"The Almighty Nuggan. I'm worshipped in parts of Borogravia. The young man was raised in my faith."

"What do Nugganoteth believe in?"

"Er... me. Mostly me. And followers are forbidden to eat chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic."

Several of the gods winced.

"When you prohibit you don't meth about, do you?" said Offler.

"No sense in forbidding broccoli, is there? That sort of approach is very old-fashioned," said Nuggan. He looked at the minstrel. "He's never been particularly bright up till now. Shall I smite him? There's bound to be some garlic in that stew, Mrs McGarry looks the type."

Offler hesitated. He was a very old god, who had arisen from steaming swamps in hot, dark lands. He had survived the rise and fall of more modern and certainly more beautiful gods by developing, for a god, a certain amount of wisdom.

Besides, Nuggan was one of the newer gods, all full of hellfire and self-importance and ambition. Offler was not bright, but he had some vague inkling that for long-term survival gods needed to offer their worshippers something more than a mere lack of thunderbolts. And he felt an ungodlike pang of sympathy for any human whose god banned chocolate and garlic. Anyway, Nuggan had an unpleasant moustache. No god had any business with a fussy little moustache like that.

"No," he said, shaking the dice box. "It'll add to the run."

Cohen pinched out the end of his ragged cigarette, stuffed it behind his ear, and looked up at the green ice.

"It's not too late to turn back," said Evil Harry. "If anyone wanted to, I mean."

"Yes it is," said Cohen, without looking around. "Besides, someone's not playing fair."

"Funny, really," said Vena. "All my life I've gone adventuring with old maps found in old tombs and so on, and I never ever worried about where they came from. It's one of those things you never think about, like who leaves all the weapons and keys and medicine kits lying around in the unexplored dungeons."

"Someone be setting a trap," said Boy Willie.

"Probably. Won't be the first trap I've walked into," said Cohen.

"We're going up against the gods, Cohen," said Harry. "A man does that, a man's got to be sure of his luck."

"Mine's worked up to now," said Cohen. He reached out and touched the rock face in front of him. "It's warm."

"But it's got ice on!" said Harry.

"Yeah. Strange, eh?" said Cohen. "It's just like the scrolls said. And see the way the snow's sticking to it? It's the magic. Well... here goes..."

Archchancellor Ridcully decided that the crew needed to be trained. Ponder Stibbons pointed out that they were going into the completely unexpected, and Ridcully ruled therefore that they should be given some unexpected training.

Rincewind, on the other hand, said that they were heading for certain death, which everyone managed eventually with no training whatsoever.

Later he said that Leonard's device would do, though. After five minutes on it, certain death seemed like a release.

"He's thrown up again," said the Dean.

"He's getting better at it, though," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

"How can you say that? Last time it was a whole ten seconds before he let go!"

"Yes, but he's throwing up more, and it's going further," said the Chair as they strolled away.

The Dean looked up. It was hard to see the flying device in the shadows of the tarpaulin-covered barge. Sheets were spread over the more interesting bits. There were strong smells of glue and varnish. The Librarian, who tended to get involved in things, was hanging peacefully from a spar and hammering wooden pegs into a plank.

"It'll be balloons, you mark my words," said the Dean. "I've got a mental picture. Balloons and sails and rigging and so on. Probably an anchor, too. Fanciful stuff."

"Over in the Agatean Empire they have kites big enough to carry men," said the Chair.

"Perhaps he's just building a bigger kite, then."

In the distance Leonard of Quirm was sitting in a pool of light, sketching. Occasionally he'd hand a page to a waiting apprentice, who would hurry away.

"Did you see the design he came up with yesterday?" said the Dean. "Had this idea that they might have to get outside the machine to repair it so — so he designed a sort of device to let you fly around with a dragon on your back! Said it was for emergencies!"

"What kind of emergency would be worse than having a dragon strapped to your back?" said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

"Exactly! The man lives in an ivory tower!"

"Does he? I thought Vetinari had him locked up in some attic."

"Well. I mean, years of that is going to give a man a very limited vision, in my humble opinion. Nothing much to do but tick the days off on the wall."

"They say he paints good pictures," said the Chair.

"Well, pictures," said the Dean dismissively.

"But they say that his are so good the eyes follow you round the room."

"Really? What does the rest of the face do?"

"That stays where it is, I suppose," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

"To me, this does not sound good," said the Dean as they wandered out into the daylight.

At his desk, while considering the problem of steering a craft in thin air, Leonard carefully drew a rose.

Evil Harry shut his eyes.

"This does not feel good," he said.

"It's easy when you get used to it," said Cohen. "It's just a matter of how you look at things."

Evil Harry opened his eyes again.

He was standing on a broad, greenish plain, which curved down gently to right and left. It was like being on a high, grassy ridge. It stretched off into a cloudy distance.

"It's just a stroll," said Boy Willie, beside him.

"Look, my feet aren't the problem here," said Evil Harry. "My feet aren't quarrelling. It's my brain."

"It helps if you think of the ground as being behind you," said Boy Willie.

"No," said Evil Harry. "It doesn't."

The strange feature of the mountain was this: once a foot was set on it, direction became a matter of personal choice. To put it another way, gravity was optional. It stayed under your feet, no matter which way your feet were pointing.

Evil Harry wondered why it was affecting only him. The Horde seemed entirely unmoved. Even Mad Hamish's horrible wheelchair was bowling along happily in a direction which, up until now, Harry had thought of as vertical. It was, he thought, probably because Evil Lords were generally brighter than heroes. You needed some functioning brain cells to do the payroll even for half a dozen henchmen. And Evil Harry's braincells were telling him to look straight ahead and try to believe that he was strolling along a broad, happy ridge and on no account to turn around, to even think about turning round, because behind him was gnh gnh gnk...

"Steady on!" said Boy Willie, steadying his arm. "Listen to your feet. They know what they're about."

To Harry's horror, Cohen chose this moment to turn around.

"Will you look at that view!" he said. "I can see everybody's house from up here!"

"Oh, no, please, no," mumbled Evil Harry, flinging himself forward and holding on to the mountain.

"It's great, isn't it?" said Truckle. "Seein" all them seas sort of hanging right over you like — What's up with Harry?"

"Just a bit poorly," said Vena.

To Cohen's surprise, the minstrel seemed quite at home with the view.

"I came from up in the mountains," he explained. "You get a head for heights up there."

"I bin to everywhere I can see," said Cohen, looking around. "Been there, done that... been there again, done it twice... nowhere left where I ain't been..."

The minstrel looked him up and down, and a kind of understanding dawned. I know why you are doing this now, he thought. Thank goodness for a classical education. Now, what was the quote?

"'And Carelinus wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer'," he said.

"Who's that bloke? You mentioned him before," said Cohen.

"You haven't heard of the Emperor Carelinus?"

"Nope."

"But... he was the greatest conquerer that ever lived! His empire spanned the entire Disc! Except for the Counterweight Continent and Fourecks, of course."

"I don't blame him. You can't get a good beer in one of 'em for love nor money, and the other's a bugger to get to."

"Well, when he got as far as the coast of Muntab, it was said that he stood on the shore and wept. Some philosopher told him there were more worlds out there somewhere, and that he'd never be able to conquer them. Er... that reminded me a bit of you."

Cohen strolled along in silence for a moment.

"Yeah," he said at last. "Yeah, I can see how that could be. Only not as cissy, obviously."

"It is now," said Ponder Stibbons, "T minus twelve hours."

His audience, sitting on the deck, watched him with alert and polite incomprehension.

"That means the flying machine will go over the Edge just before dawn tomorrow," Ponder explained.

Everyone turned to Leonard, who was watching a seagull.

"Mr da Quirm?" said Lord Vetinari.

"What? Oh. Yes." Leonard blinked. "Yes. The device will be ready, although the privy is giving me problems."

The Lecturer in Recent Runes fumbled in the capacious pockets of his robe. "Oh dear, I believe I have a bottle of something... the sea always affects me that way, too."

"I was rather thinking of problems associated with the thin air and low gravity," said Leonard. "That's what the survivor of the Maria Pesto reported. But this afternoon I feel I can come up with a privy that, happily, utilises the thinner air of altitude to achieve the effect normally associated with gravity. Gentle suction is involved."

Ponder nodded. He had a quick mind when it came to mechanical detail, and he'd already formed a mental picture. Now a mental eraser would be useful,

"Er... good," he said. "Well, most of the ships will fall behind the barge during the night. Even with magically assisted wind we dare not venture closer than thirty miles to the Rim. After that, we could be caught in the current and swept over the Edge."

Rincewind, who had been leaning moodily over the rail and watching the water, turned at this.

"How far are we from the island of Krull?" he said.

"That place? Hundreds of miles," said Ponder. "We want to keep well away from those pirates."

"So... we'll run straight into the Circumfence, then?"

There was technically silence, although it was loud with unspoken thoughts. Each man was busy trying to think of a reason why it would have been far too much to expect him to have thought of this, while at the same time being a reason why someone else should have. The Circumfence was the biggest construction ever built; it extended almost a third of the way around the world. On the large island of Krull, an entire civilisation lived on what they recovered from it. They ate a lot of sushi, and their dislike for the rest of the world was put down to permanent dyspepsia.

In his chair, Lord Vetinari grinned in a thin, acid way.

"Yes indeed," he said. It extends for several thousands of miles, I understand. However, I gather the Krullians no longer keep captive seamen as slaves. They simply charge ruinous salvage rates."

"A few fireballs would blow the thing apart," said Ridcully.

"That does rather require you to be very close to it, though," said Lord Vetinari. "That is to say, so close to the Rimfall that you would be destroying the very thing that is preventing you from being swept over the Edge. A knotty problem, gentlemen."

"Magic carpet," said Ridcully. "Just the job. We've got one in —"

"Not that close to the Edge, sir," said Ponder, dismally. "The thaumic field is very thin and there are some ferocious air currents."

There was the crisp rattle of a big drawing pad being turned to the next page.

"Oh, yes," said Leonard, more or less to himself.

"Pardon me?" said the Patrician.

"I did once design a simple means whereby entire fleets could be destroyed quite easily, my lord. Only as a technical exercise, of course."

"But with numbered parts and a list of instructions?" said the Patrician.

"Why, yes, my lord. Of course. Otherwise it would not be a proper exercise. And I feel sure that with the help of these magical gentlemen we should be able to adapt it for this purpose."

He gave them a bright smile. They looked at his drawing. Men were leaping from ships in flames, into a boiling sea.

"You do this sort of thing as a hobby, do you?" said the Dean.

"Oh, yes. There are no practical applications."

"But couldn't someone build something like that?" said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "You practically include glue and transfers!"

"Well, I daresay there are people like that," said Leonard diffidently. "But I am sure the government would put a stop to things before they went too far."

And the smile on Lord Vetinari's face was one that probably even Leonard of Quirm, with all his genius, would never be able to capture on canvas.

Very carefully, knowing that if they dropped one they probably wouldn't even know they'd dropped one, a team of students and apprentices lifted the cages of dragons into the racks under the rear of the flying machine. Occasionally one of the dragons hiccuped. Everyone present, bar one, would freeze. The exception was Rincewind, who would be crouched down behind a pile of timber many yards away.

"They've all been well fed on Leonard's special feed and should be quite docile for four or five hours," said Ponder, pulling him out for the third time. "The first two stages were given their meals with a carefully timed interval, and the first lot should be in a mood to flame just as you go over the Rimfall."

"What if we're delayed?"

Ponder gave this some deep thought.

"Whatever you do, don't be delayed," he said.

"Thank you."

"The ones that you'll be taking with you in flight may need feeding, too. We've loaded a mixture of naphtha, rock oil and anthracite dust."

"For me to feed to the dragons."

"Yes."

"In this wooden ship, which will be very, very high?"

"Well, in a technical sense, yes."

"Could we focus on that technicality?"

"Strictly speaking, there won't be any down. As such. Er... you could say that you will be travelling so fast that you won't be in any one place long enough to fall down." Ponder sought a glimmer of understanding in Rincewind's face. "Or, to put in another way, you'll be falling permanently without ever hitting the ground."

Up above them, rack on rack of dragons sizzled contentedly. Wisps of steam drifted through the shadows.

"Oh," said Rincewind.

"You understand?" said Ponder.

"No. I was just hoping that if I didn't say anything you'd stop trying to explain things to me."

"How are we doing, Mr Stibbons?" said the Archchancellor, strolling up at the head of his wizards. "How's our enormous kite?"

"Everything's going to plan, sir. We're at T minus five hours, sir."

"Really? Good. We're at supper in ten minutes."

Rincewind had a small cabin, with cold water and running rats. Most of it that wasn't occupied by his bunk was occupied by his luggage. The Luggage.

It was a box that walked around on hundreds of little legs. It was magical, as far as he knew. He'd had it for years. It understood every word he said. It obeyed about one in every hundred, unfortunately.

"There won't be any room," he said. "And you know every time you've gone up in the air you've got lost."

The Luggage watched him in its eyeless way.

"So you stay with nice Mr Stibbons, all right? You've never been at ease around gods, either. I shall be back very soon."

Still the eyeless stare went on.

"Just don't look at me that way, will you?" said Rincewind.

Lord Vetinari cast his eye over the three... what was the word?

"Men," he said, settling for one that was undoubtedly correct, "it falls to me to congratulate you on... on..."

He hesitated. Lord Vetinari was not a man who delighted in the technical. There were two cultures, as far as he was concerned. One was the real one, the other was occupied by people who liked machinery and ate pizza at unreasonable hours.

"... on being the first people to leave the Disc with the resolute intention of returning to it," he went on. "Your... mission is to land on or near Con Celesti, locate Cohen the Barbarian and his men, and by whatever means feasible stop this ridiculous scheme of theirs. There must be some misunderstanding. Even barbarian heroes generally draw the line at blowing up the world." He sighed. "They're usually not civilised enough for that," he added. "Anyway... we implore him to listen to reason, et cetera. Barbarians are generally sentimentalists. Tell him about all the dear little puppies that will be killed, or something. Beyond that, I can't advise you further. I suspect classical force is out of the question. If Cohen was easy to kill, people would have done it a long time ago."

Captain Carrot saluted. "Force is always the last resort, sir," he said.

"I believe that for Cohen it's the first choice," said Lord Vetinari.

"He's not too bad if you don't come up behind him suddenly," said Rincewind.

"Ah, there is the voice of our mission specialist," said the Patrician. "I just hope — What is that on your badge, Captain Carrot?"

"Mission motto, sir," said Carrot cheerfully. "Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it."

"I imagine he did," said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. "And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?"

"Er..." Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. "Er... roughly speaking, it means, 'We who are about to die don't want to', sir."

"Very clearly expressed. I commend your determination... Yes?"

Ponder had whispered something in his ear.

"Ah, I'm informed that we have to leave you shortly," said Lord Vetinari. "Mr Stibbons tells me that there is a means of keeping in touch with you, at least until you're close to the mountain."

"Yes, sir," said Carrot. "The fractured omniscope. An amazing device. Each part sees what the other parts sees. Astonishing."

"Well, I trust your new careers will be uplifting if not, ahaha, meteoric. To your places, gentlemen."

"Er... I just want to take an iconograph, sir," said Ponder, hurrying forward and clutching a large box. "To record the moment? If you would all stand in front of the flag and smile, please... that means the corners of your mouth go up, Rincewind... thank you." Ponder, like all bad photographers, took the shot just a fraction of a second after the smiles had frozen. "And do you have any last words?"

"You mean, last words before we go and come back?" said Carrot, his brow wrinkling.

"Oh, yes. Of course. That's what I meant! Because of course you will be coming back, won't you?" said Ponder, far too quickly in Rincewind's opinion. "I have absolute confidence in Mr da Quirm's work, and I'm sure he has too."

"Oh, dear. No, I never bother to have any confidence," said Leonard.

"You don't?"

"No, things just work. You don't have to wish," said Leonard. "And, of course, if we do fail, then things won't be that bad, will they? If we fail to come back, there won't be anywhere left to fail to come back to in any case, will there? So it will all cancel out." He gave his happy little smile. "Logic is a great comfort in times like this, I always find."

"Personally," said Captain Carrot, "I am happy, thrilled and delighted to be going." He tapped a box by his side. "And I am, as instructed, also bringing along an iconograph and intend to take many useful and deeply moving images of our world from the perspective of space which will perhaps cause us to see humanity in an entirely new light."

"Is this the time to resign from the crew?" said Rincewind, staring at his fellow voyagers.

"No," said Lord Vetinari.

"Possibly on grounds of insanity?"

"Your own, I assume?"

"Take your pick!"

Vetinari beckoned Rincewind forward.

"But it could be said that someone would have to be insane to take part in this venture," he murmured. "In which case, of course, you are fully qualified."

"Then... supposing I'm not insane?"

"Oh, as ruler of Ankh-Morpork I have a duty to send only the keenest, coolest minds on a vital errand of this kind."

He held Rincewind's gaze for a moment.

"I think there's a catch there," said the wizard, knowing that he'd lost.

"Yes. The best kind there is," said the Patrician.

The lights of the anchored ships disappeared into the murk as the barge drifted on, faster now as the current began to pull.

"No turning back now," said Leonard.

There was a roll of thunder, and fingers of lightning walked along the Edge of the world.

"Just a squall, I expect," he added, as fat drops of rain thudded on the tarpaulins. "Shall we get aboard? The draglines will keep us pointed directly at the Rim, and we might as well make ourselves comfortable while we wait."

"We ought to release the fire boats first, sir," said Carrot.

"Silly me, yes," said Leonard. "I'd forget my own head if it was wasn't held on with bones and skin and things!"

A couple of ship's boats had been sacrificed for the attempt on the Circumfence. They wallowed slightly, laden as they were with spare tins of varnish, paint and the remains of the dragons" supper. Carrot picked up a couple of lanterns and, after a couple of tries in the gusting wind, managed to light them and place them carefully according to Leonard's instructions.

Then the boats were cast adrift. Freed of the drag of the barge, they pulled away in the quickening current.

The rain was hammering down now.

"And now let us get aboard," said Leonard, ducking back out of the rain. "A cup of tea will do us good."

"I thought we decided we couldn't have any naked flames on board, sir," said Carrot.

"I have brought along a special jug of my own devising which keeps things warm," said Leonard. "Or cold, if you prefer. I call it the Hot or Cold Flask. I am at a loss as to how it knows which it is that you prefer, but nevertheless it seems to work."

He led the way up the ladder.

Only one small lamp lit the little cabin. It illuminated three seats, embedded among a network of levers, armatures and springs.

The crew had been up here before. They knew the layout. There was one little bed further aft, on the basis that there would only be time for any one person to be asleep. String bags had been stapled to every bit of unused wall to hold water bottles and food. Unfortunately, some of Lord Vetinari's committees, devised in order to prevent their members from interfering with anything important, had turned their attention to provisioning the craft. It appeared packed for every eventuality, including alligator-wrestling on a glacier.

Leonard sighed.

"I really didn't like to say no to anyone." he said, "I did suggest that, er, nourishing but concentrated and, er, low-residue food would be preferred —"

As one man, they turned in their seats to look at the Experimental Privy Mk 2. Mk 1 had worked — Leonard's devices tended to — but since a key to its operation was that it tumbled very fast on a central axis while in use it had been abandoned after a report by its test pilot (Rincewind) that, whatever you had in mind when you went in, the only thing you wanted to do once inside was get out.

Mk 2 was as yet untried. It creaked ominously under their gaze, an open invitation to constipation and kidney stones.

"It will undoubtedly function," said Leonard, and just this once Rincewind noted the harmonic of uncertainty. "It is all just a matter of opening the correct valves in sequence."

"What happens if we don't open the right valves in sequence, sir?" said Carrot, buckling himself in.

"You must appreciate that I have had to design so many things for this craft —" Leonard began.

"We'd still like to know," said Rincewind.

"Er... in truth, what happens if you don't open the right valves in sequence is that you will wish you had opened the right valves in sequence," said Leonard. He fumbled below his seat and produced a large metal flask of curious design. "Tea, anyone?" he said.

"Just a small cup," said Carrot firmly.

"Make mine a spoonful," said Rincewind. "And what's this thing hanging in the ceiling in front of me?"

"It's my new device for looking behind you," said Leonard. "It's very simple to use. I call it the Device For Looking Behind You."

"Looking behind you is a bad move," said Rincewind firmly. "I've always said so. It slows you down."

"Ah, but this way we won't slow down at all."

"Really?" said Rincewind, brightening up.

A squall of rain banged on the tarpaulins. Carrot tried to see ahead. A gap had been cut in the covers so that the —

"By the way... what are we?" he said. "I mean, what do we call ourselves?"

"Possibly foolish." said Rincewind.

"I meant officially?" Carrot looked around the crammed cabin. "And what do we call this craft?"

"The wizards call it the big kite," said Rincewind. "But it's nothing like a kite, a kite is something on a string which —"

"It has to have a name," said Carrot. "It's very bad luck to attempt a voyage in a vessel with no name."

Rincewind looked at the levers in front of his seat. They had to do mainly with dragons. "We're in a big wooden box and behind us are about a hundred dragons who are getting ready to burp," he said. "I think we need a name. Er... do you actually know how to fly this thing, Leonard?"

"Not as such, but I intend to learn very soon."

"A really good name," said Rincewind fervently. Ahead of them the stormy horizon was lit by an explosion. The boats had hit the Circumfence, and burst into fierce, corrosive flame. "Right now?" he added.

"The kite, the real kite, is a very beautiful bird," said Leonard. "It's what I had in mind when I —"

"The Kite it is, then," said Carrot firmly. He glanced at a list pinned in front of him and ticked off one item. "Shall I drop the tarpaulin anchor, sir?"

"Yes. Er. Yes. Do that," said Leonard. Carrot pulled a lever. Below and behind them there was the sound of a splash, and then of cable running out very fast

"There's a reef! There's rocks!" Rincewind stood up, pointing.

The firelight ahead glowed on something squat and immovable, surrounded by surf.

"No turning back," said Leonard as the sinking anchor dragged the Kite's coverings off like an enormous canvas egg. He reached out and pulled handles and knobs like an organist in full fugue.

"Number One Blinkers... down. Tethers... off. Gentlemen, each pull those big handles beside you when I say..."

The rocks loomed. The white water at the lip of the endless Fall was red with fire and glowing with lightning. Jagged rocks were a few yards away, hungry as a crocodile's teeth.

"Now! Now! Now! Mirrors... down! Good! We have flame! Now what was it... oh, yes... Everyone hold on to something!"

Wings unfolding, dragons flaring, the Kite rose from the splintering barge and into the storm and over the Rim of the world...

The only sound was a faint whisper of air as Rincewind and Carrot clambered off the shivering floor. Their pilot was staring out of the window.

"Look at the birds! Oh, do look at the birds!"

In the calm sunlit air beyond the storm they swooped and turned in their thousands around the gliding ship, as small birds will mob an eagle. And it did look like an eagle, one that had just snatched a giant salmon from the Fall...

Leonard stood entranced, tears running down his cheeks.

Carrot tapped him very gently on the shoulder. "Sir?"

"It's so beautiful... so beautiful..."

"Sir, we need you to fly this thing, sir! Remember? Stage Two?"

"Hmm?" Then the artist shuddered, and part of him returned to his body. "Oh, yes, very well, very well..." He sat down heavily in his seat. "Yes... to be sure... yes. We shall, er, we shall test the controls. Yes."

He laid a trembling hand on the levers in front of him, and placed his feet on the pedals. The Kite lurched sideways on the air.

"Oops... ah, now I think I have it... sorry... yes... oh, sorry, dear me... ah, now I think..."

Rincewind, flung against the window by another judder, looked down the face of the Rimfall.

Here and there, all the way down, mountain-sized islands projected from the wall of white water, glowing in the evening light. Little white clouds scudded between them. And everywhere there were birds, wheeling, nesting, gliding —

"There's forests on those rocks! They're like little countries... there's people! I can see houses!"

He was thrown back again as the Kite banked into some cloud.

"There's people living over the Edge!" he said.

"Old shipwrecks, I suppose," said Carrot.

"I, er, I think I have the hang of it now," said Leonard, staring fixedly ahead. "Rincewind, please be so good as to pull that lever there, will you?"

Rincewind did so. There was a clunk behind them, and the ship shook slightly as the first-stage cage was dropped.

As it tumbled slowly apart in the air, small dragons spread their wings and flapped hopefully back towards the Disc.

"I thought there would be more than that," said Rincewind.

"Oh, those are just the ones we used to help us get clear of the Rim," said Leonard, as the Kite turned lazily in the air. "Most of the others we'll use to go down."

"Down?" said Rincewind.

"Oh, yes. We need to go down, as quickly as we can. No time to waste."

"Down? This is not the time to talk about down! You kept on talking about around. Around is fine! Not down!"

"Ah, but you see, in order to go around we need to go down. Fast." Leonard looked reproachful. "I did put it in my notes —"

"Down is not a direction with which I am happy!"

"Hello? Hello?" came a voice, out of the air.