a result I was put to some inconvenience to use the silk and some bamboo to build a flying machine from which I could launch myself from the top-most turret of my prison.”
“Bringing you, by various diversions, to Krull,” said the Arch-astronomer. “And one cannot help feeling that some alternative occupation—lettuce farming, say—would offer somewhat less of a risk of being put to death by instalments. Why do you continue in it? Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged.
“I’m good at it,” he said.
The Arch-astronomer looked up again bronze fish, shining now like a gong in the noontime sun.
“Such beauty,” he murmured. “And unique. Come, Dactylos. Recall to me what it was that I promised should be your reward?”
“You asked me to design a fish that would swim through the seas of space that lie between the worlds,” intoned the master craftsman. “In return for which– in return—”
“Yes? My memory is not what it used to be,” purred the Arch-astronomer, stroking the warm bronze.
“In return,” continued Dactylos, without much apparent hope, “you would set me free, and refrain from chopping off any appendages. I require no treasure.”
“Ah, yes. I recall now.” The old man raised a blueveined hand, and added, “I lied.”
There was the merest whisper of sound, and the goldeneyed man rocked on his feet. Then he looked down at the arrowhead protruding from his chest, and nodded wearily. A speck of blood bloomed on his lips.
There was no sound in the entire square (save for the buzzing of a few expectant flies) as his silver hand came up, very slowly, and fingered the arrowhead.
Dactylos grunted.
“Sloppy workmanship,” he said, and toppled backwards.
The Arch-astronomer prodded the body with his toe, and sighed.
“There will be a short period of mourning, as befits a master craftsman,” he said. He watched a bluebottle alight on one golden eye and fly away puzzled… “That would seem to be long enough,” said the Arch-astronomer, and beckoned a couple of slaves to carry the corpse away.
“Are the chelonauts ready?” he asked.
The master launchcontroller hustled forward.
“Indeed, your prominence,” he said.
“The correct prayers are being intoned?
“Quite so, your prominence.”
“How long to the doorway?”
“The launch window,” corrected the master launchcontroller carefully. “Three days, your prominence. Great A’Tuin’s tail will be in an unmatched position.”
“Then all that remains,” concluded the Arch-astronomer, “is to find the appropriate sacrifice.”
The master launchcontroller bowed.
“The ocean shall provide,” he said.
The old man smiled. it always does,” he said.
“If only you could navigate”
“If only you could steer—”
A wave washed over the deck. Rincewind and Twoflower looked at each other. “Keep bailing!” they screamed in unison, and reached for the buckets.
After a while Twoflower’s peevish voice filtered up from the waterlogged cabin.
“I don’t see how it’s my fault,” he said. He handed up another bucket, which the wizard tipped over the side.
“You were supposed to be on watch,” snapped Rincewind.
“I saved us from the slavers, remember,” said Twoflower.
“I’d rather be a slave than a corpse,” replied the wizard. He straightened up and looked out to sea. He appeared puzzled.
He was a somewhat different Rincewind from the one that escaped the fire of Ankh-Morpork six months before. More scarred, for one thing. And much more travelled. He had visited the Hublands, discovered the curious folkways of many colourful peoples—invariably obtaining more scars in the process—and had even, for a never- to-be-forgotten few days, sailed on the legendary Dehydrated Ocean at the heart of the incredibly dry desert known as the Great Nef. On a colder and wetter sea he had seen floating mountains of ice. He had ridden on an imaginary dragon. He had very nearly said the most powerful spell on the disc. He had-
–there was definitely less horizon than there ought to be.
“Hmm” Said Rincewind.
“I said nothing’s worse than slavery,” said Twoflower. His mouth opened as the wizard flung his bucket far out to sea and sat down heavily on the waterlogged deck, his face a grey mask.
“Look, I’m sorry I steered us into the reef, but this boat doesn’t seem to want to sink and we’re bound to strike land sooner or later,” said Twoflower comfortingly. “This current must go somewhere.”
“Look at the horizon,” Said Rincewind, in a monotone.
Twoflower squinted.
“It looks all right,” he said after a while.
“Admittedly, there seems to be less than there usually is, but—”
“That’s because of the Rimfall,” said Rincewind.
“We’re being carried over the edge of the world.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the lapping of the waves as the foundering ship spun slowly in the current. It was already quite strong.
“That’s probably why we hit that reef,” Rincewind added. “we got pulled off course during the night.”
“Would you like something to eat?” asked Twoflower. He began to rummage through the bundle that he had tied to the rail, out of the damp.
“Don’t you understand?” snarled Rincewind. “We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!”
“Can’t we do anything about it?”
“No!”
“Then I can’t see the sense in panicking,” said Twoflower calmly.
“I knew we shouldn’t have come this far Edgewise,” complained Rincewind to the skye “I wish—”
“I wish I had my picture-box,” said Twoflower, “but it’s back on that slaver ship with the rest of the Luggage and—”
“You won’t need luggage where we’re going,” said Rincewind. He sagged, and stared moodily at a distant whale that had carelessly strayed into the rimward current and was now struggling against it.
There was a line of white on the foreshortened horizon, and the wizard fancied he could hear a distant roaring.
“What happens after a ship goes over the Rimfall?” said Twoflower.
“Who knows?”
“Well, in that case perhaps we’ll just sail on through space and land on another world.” A faraway look came into the little man’s eyes. “I’d like that,” he said.
Rincewind snorted.
The sun rose in the sky, looking noticeably bigger this close to the Edge. They stood with their backs against the mast, busy with their own thoughts. Every so often one or other would pick up a bucket and do a bit of desultory bailing, for no very intelligent reason.
The sea around them seemed to be getting crowded. Rincewind noticed several tree trunks keeping station with them, and just below the surface the water was alive with fish of all sorts. The current must be teeming with food washed from the continents near the Hub. He wondered what kind of life it would be, having to keep swimming all the time to stay exactly in the same place. Pretty similar to his own, he decided. He spotted a small green frog which was paddling desperately in the grip of the inexorable current. To Twoflower’s amazement he found a paddle and carefully extended it towards the little amphibian, which scrambled onto it gratefully. A moment later a pair of jaws broke the water and snapped impotently at the spot where it had been swimming.
