The Light Fantastic

Page 31

'How about “zsff”?' said Twoflower.
'Don't be silly,' said Rincewind. 'With snow runes the —'
Bethan elbowed him in the stomach and pointed.
The brown shape in the air was now a brilliant red.
The book trembled in her hands. Rincewind grabbed her around the waist, snatched Twoflower by the collar, and jumped backwards.
Bethan lost her grip on the Octavo, which tumbled towards the floor. And didn't reach it.
The air around the Octavo glowed. It rose slowly, flapping its pages like wings.
Then there was a plangent, sweet twanging noise and it seemed to explode in a complicated silent flower of light which rushed outwards, faded, and was gone.
But something was happening much further up in the sky . . .
Down in the geological depths of Great A'Tuin's huge brain new thoughts surged along neural pathways the size of arterial roads. It was impossible for a sky turtle to change its expression, but in some indefinable way its scaly, meteor-pocked face looked quite expectant.
It was staring fixedly at the eight spheres endlessly orbiting around the star, on the very beaches of space.
The spheres were cracking.
Huge segments of rock broke away and began the long spiral down to the star. The sky filled with glittering shards.
From the wreakage of one hollow shell a very small sky turtle paddled its way into the red light. It was barely bigger than an asteroid, its shell still shiny with molten yolk.
There were four small world-elephant calves on there, too. And on their backs was a discworld, tiny as yet, covered in smoke and volcanoes.
Great A'Tuin waited until all eight baby turtles had freed themselves from their shells and were treading space and looking bewildered. Then, carefully, so as not to dislodge anything, the old turtle turned and with considerable relief set out on the long swim to the blessedly cool, bottomless depths of space.
The young turtles followed, orbiting their parent.
Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc.
Then a terrible thought occurred to him.
'Where's the picture box?' he asked urgently.
'What?' said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky.
'The picture box,' said Twoflower. 'I must get a picture of this!'
'Can't you just remember it?' said Bethan, not looking at him.
'I might forget.'
'I won't ever forget,' she said. 'It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'
'Much better than pigeons and billiard balls,' agreed Cohen. 'I'll give you that, Rincewind. How's it done?'
'I dunno,' said Rincewind.
'The star's getting smaller,' said Bethan.
Rincewind was vaguely aware of Twoflower's voice arguing with the demon who lived in the box and painted the pictures. It was quite a technical argument, about field depths and whether or not the demon still had enough red paint.
It should be pointed out that currently Great A'Tuin was very pleased and contented, and feelings like that in a brain the size of several large cities are bound to radiate out. In fact most people on the Disc were currently in a state of mind normally achievable only by a lifetime of dedicated meditation or about thirty seconds of illegal herbage.
That's old Twoflower, Rincewind thought. It's not that he doesn't appreciate beauty, he just appreciates it in his own way. I mean, if a poet sees a daffodil he stares at it and writes a long poem about it, but Twoflower wanders off to find a book on botany. And treads on it. It's right what Cohen said. He just looks at things, but nothing he looks at is ever the same again. Including me, I suspect.
The Disc's own sun rose. The star was already dwindling, and it wasn't quite so much competition. Good reliable Disc light poured across the enraptured landscape, like a sea of gold.
Or, as the more reliable observers generally held, like golden syrup.
That is a nice dramatic ending, but life doesn't work like that and there were other things that had to happen.
There was the Octavo, for example.
As the sunlight hit it the book snapped shut and started to fall back to the tower. And many of the observers realised that dropping towards them was the single most magical thing on the Discworld.
The feeling of bliss and brotherhood evaporated along with the morning dew. Rincewind and Twoflower were elbowed aside as the crowd surged forward, struggling and trying to climb up one another, hands outstretched.
The Octavo dropped into the centre of the shouting mass. There was a snap. A decisive snap, the sort of snap made by a lid that doesn't intend to be opening in a hurry.
Rincewind peered between someone's legs at Twoflower.
'Do you know what I think's going to happen?' he said, grinning.
'What?'
'I think that when you open the Luggage there's just going to be your laundry in there, that's what I think.'
'Oh dear.'
'I think the Octavo knows how to look after itself. Best place for it, really.'
'I suppose so. You know, sometimes I get the feeling that the Luggage knows exactly what it's doing.'
'I know what you mean.'
They crawled to the edge of the milling crowd, stood up, dusted themselves off and headed for the steps. No-one paid them any attention.
'What are they doing now?' said Twoflower, trying to see over the heads of the throng.
'It looks as though they're trying to lever it open,' said Rincewind.
There was a snap and a scream.
'I think the Luggage rather enjoys the attention,' said Twoflower, as they began their cautious descent.
'Yes, it probably does it good to get out and meet people,' said Rincewind, 'and now I think it'd do me good to go and order a couple of drinks.'
'Good idea,' said Twoflower. 'I'll have a couple of drinks too.'
It was nearly noon when Twoflower awoke. He couldn't remember why he was in a hayloft, or why he was wearing someone else's coat, but he did wake up with one idea right in the forefront of his mind.
He decided it was vitally important to tell Rincewind about it.
He fell out of the hay and landed on the Luggage.
'Oh, you're here, are you?' he said. 'I hope you're ashamed of yourself.'
The Luggage looked bewildered.
'Anyway, I want to comb my hair. Open up,' said Twoflower.
The Luggage obligingly flipped its lid. Twoflower rooted around among the bags and boxes inside until he found a comb and mirror and repaired some of the damage of the night. Then he looked hard at the Luggage.
'I suppose you wouldn't like to tell me what you've done with the Octavo?'
The Luggage's expression could only be described as wooden.
'All right. Come on, then.'
Twoflower stepped out into the sunlight, which was slightly too bright for his current tastes, and wandered aimlessly along the street. Everything seemed fresh and new, even the smells, but there didn't seem to be many people up yet. It had been a long night.
He found Rincewind at the foot of the Tower of Art, upervising a team of workmen who had rigged up a gantry of sorts on the roof and were lowering the stone wizards to the ground. He seemed to be assisted by a monkey, but Twoflower was in no mood to be surprised at anything.
'Will they be able to be turned back?' he said.
Rincewind looked around. 'What? Oh, it's you. No, probably not. I'm afraid they dropped poor old Wert, anyway. Five hundred feet onto cobbles.'
'Will you be able to do anything about that?'
'Make a nice rockery.' Rincewind turned and waved at the workmen.
'You're very cheerful,' said Twoflower, a shade reproachfully. 'Didn't you go to bed?'
'Funny thing, I couldn't sleep,' said Rincewind. 'I came out for a breath of fresh air, and no-one seemed to have any idea what to do, so I just sort of got people together,' he indicated the librarian, who tried to hold his hand, 'and started organising things. Nice day, isn't it? Air like wine.'
'Rincewind, I've decided that —'
'You know, I think I might re-enroll,' said Rincewind cheerfully. 'I think I could really make a go of things this time. I can really see myself getting to grips with magic and graduating really well. They do say if it's summa cum laude, then the living is easy – .'
'Good, because —'
There's plenty of room at the top, too, now all the big boys will be doing doorstop duty, and —'
'I'm going home.'
'— a sharp lad with a bit of experience of the world could – what?'
'Oook?'
'I said I'm going home,' repeated Twoflower, making polite little attempts to shake off the librarian, who was trying to pick lice off him.
'What home?' said Rincewind, astonished.
'Home home. My home. Where I live,' Twoflower explained sheepishly. 'Back across the sea. You know.
Where I came from. Will you please stop doing that?'
'Oh.'
'Oook?'
There was a pause. Then Twoflower said, 'You see, last night it occurred to me, I thought, well, the thing is, all this travelling and seeing things is fine but there's also a lot of fun to be had from having been. You know, sticking all your pictures in a book and remembering things.'
'There is?'
'Oook?'
'Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home. I think that's what I mean.'
Rincewind ran the sentence across his mind again. It didn't seem any better second time around.
'Oh,' he said again. Well, good. If that's the way you look at it. When are you going, then?'
'Today, I think. There's bound to be a ship going part of the way.'
'I expect so,' said Rincewind awkwardly. He looked at his feet. He looked at the sky. He cleared his throat.
'We've been through some times together, eh?' said Twoflower, nudging him in the ribs.
'Yeah,' said Rincewind, contorting his face into something like a grin.
'You're not upset, are you?'
'Who, me?' said Rincewind. 'Gosh, no. Hundred and one things to do.'
That's all right, then. Listen, let's go and have breakfast and then we can go down to the docks.'
Rincewind nodded dismally, turned to his assistant, and took a banana out of his pocket.
'You've got the hang of it now, you take over,' he muttered.
'Oook.'
In fact there wasn't any ship going anywhere near the Agatean Empire, but that was an academic point because Twoflower simply counted gold pieces into the hand of the first captain with a halfway clean ship until the man suddenly saw the merits of changing his plans.
Rincewind waited on the quayside until Twoflower had finished paying the man about forty times more than his ship was worth.
'That's settled, then,' said Twoflower. 'He'll drop me at the Brown Islands and I can easily get a ship from there.'
'Great,' said Rincewind.
Twoflower looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he opened the Luggage and pulled out a bag of gold.
'Have you seen Cohen and Bethan?' he said.
'I think they went off to get married,' said Rincewind. 'I heard Bethan say it was now or never.'
'Well, when you see them give them this,' said Twoflower, handing him the bag. 'I know it's expensive, setting up home for the first time.'
Twoflower had never fully understood the gulf in the exchange rate. The bag could quite easily set Cohen up with a small kingdom.
'I'll hand it over first chance I get,' he said, and to his own surprise realised that he meant it.
'Good. I've thought about something to give you, too.'
'Oh, there's no —'
Twoflower rummaged in the Luggage and produced a large sack. He began to fill it with clothes and money and the picture box until finally the Luggage was completely empty. The last thing he put in was his souvenir musical cigarette box with the shell-encrusted lid, carefully wrapped in soft paper.