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.
‘It’s all yours,’ he said, shutting the Luggage’s lid. ‘I shan’t really need it any more, and it won’t fit on my wardrobe anyway.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you want it?’
‘Well, I—of course, but—it’s yours. It follows you, not me.’
‘Luggage,’ said Twoflower, ‘this is Rincewind. You’re his, right?’
The Luggage slowly extended its legs, turned very deliberately and looked at Rincewind.
‘I don’t think it belongs to anyone but itself, really,’ said Twoflower.
‘Yes,’ said Rincewind uncertainly.
‘Well, that’s about it, then,’ said Twoflower. He held out his hand.
‘Goodbye, Rincewind. I’ll send you a postcard when I get home. Or something.’
‘Yes. Any time you’re passing, there’s bound to be someone here who knows where I am.’
‘Yes. Well. That’s it, then.’
‘That’s it, right enough.’
‘Right.’
‘Yep.’
Twoflower walked up the gangplank, which the impatient crew hauled up behind him.
The rowing drum started its beat and the ship was propelled slowly out onto the turbid waters of the Ankh, now back to their old level, where it caught the tide and turned towards the open sea.
Rincewind watched it until it was a dot. Then he looked down at the Luggage. It stared back at him.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Go away. I’m giving you to yourself, do you understand?’
He turned his back on it and stalked away. After a few seconds he was aware of the little footsteps behind him. He spun around.
‘I said I don’t want you!’ he snapped, and gave it a kick.
The Luggage sagged. Rincewind stalked away.
After he had gone a few yards he stopped and listened. There was no sound. When he turned the Luggage was where he had left it. It looked sort of huddled. Rincewind thought for a while.
‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Come on.’
He turned his back and strode off to the University. After a few minutes the Luggage appeared to make up its mind, extended its legs again and padded after him. It didn’t see that it had a lot of choice.
They headed along the quay and into the city, two dots on a dwindling landscape which, as the perspective broadened, included a tiny ship starting out across a wide green sea that was but a part of a bright circling ocean on a cloud-swirled Disc on the back of four giant elephants that themselves stood on the shell of an enormous turtle.
Which soon became a glint among the stars, and disappeared.
The End
1
They won’t be described, since even the pretty ones looked like the offspring of an octopus and a bicycle. It is well known that things from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops.
2
A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls.
3
An interesting metaphor. To nocturnal trolls, of course, the dawn of time lies in the future.
4
Not precisely, of course. Trees didn’t burst into flame, people didn’t suddenly become very rich and extremely dead, and the seas didn’t flash into steam. A better simile, in fact, would be ‘not like molten gold’.
5
No-one knows why, but all the most truly mysterious and magical items are bought from shops that appear and, after a trading life even briefer than a double-glazing company, vanish like smoke. There had been various attempts to explain this, all of which don’t fully account for the observed facts. These shops turn up anywhere in the universe, and their immediate non-existence in any particular city can normally be deduced from crowds of people wandering the streets clutching defunct magical items, ornate guarantee cards, and looking very suspiciously at brick walls.
