The Colour of Magic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A wave sprang up from nowhere and lapped over the edge. It hit the flagstones but, instead of spreading out, began to take the shape of a foot. Another foot and the bottom half of a pair of legs followed as more water streamed down as if filling an invisible mould. A moment later Tethis the sea troll was standing in front of them, blinking.

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

He looked around, ignoring their astonished expressions.

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

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

‘Well, well,’ said Tethis. He looked up.

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

An arrow zipped through his chest, leaving a faint ripple. He didn’t appear to notice. Rincewind did. Soldiers were beginning to appear at the edge of the arena, and a number of them were peering around the entrances.

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

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

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

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

A spear arced out of the sky and trembled to a halt in the woodwork by the wizard’s ear. He screamed briefly and scrambled up the ladder after the others.

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

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

* * *

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

* * *

‘What was that?’ said Rincewind urgently. He looked down.

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

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

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

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

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

‘I—’ he began.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He also saw a gang of men climbing desperately over the lower slopes of the launching ramp and manhandling a large baulk of timber onto the track, in a frantic attempt to derail the ship before it vanished over the Edge. The wheels slammed into it, but the only effect was to make the ship rock, Twoflower to lose his grip on the ladder and fall into the cabin, and the hatch to slam down with the horrible sound of a dozen fiddly little catches snapping into place. Rincewind dived forward and scrabbled at them, whimpering.

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

Rincewind stood up. There was only one thing to do now, and he did it. He panicked blindly, just as the ship’s bogeys hit the little upgrade and flung it, sparkling like a salmon, into the sky and over the Edge.

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

The end

Rincewind woke up and shivered. He was freezing cold.

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

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

Tree. He concentrated on the word that floated up from his mind, although the buzzing in his ears and the flashing lights in front of his eyes made this an unexpected achievement. Tree. Wooden thing. That was it. Branches