Rincewind shook himself mentally.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to sound impatient, but in a few minutes some people are going to come through that door and take us away and kill us.”
“Yes,” said the Lady.
“I suppose you wouldn’t tell us why?” said Twoflower.
“Yes,” said the Lady. “The Krullians intend to launch a bronze vessel over the edge of the Disc. Their prime purpose is to learn the sex of A’tuin the World Turtle.”
“Seems rather pointless,” said Rincewind.
“No. Consider. One day Great A’tuin may encounter another member of the species chelys galactica, somewhere in the vast night in which we move. Will they fight? Will they mate? A little imagination will show you that the sex of Great A’tuin could be very important to us. At least, so the Krullians say.”
Rincewind tried not to think of World Turtles mating. It wasn’t completely easy.
“So,” continued the goddess, “they intend to launch this ship of space, with two voyagers aboard. It will be the culmination of decades of research. It will also be very dangerous for the travellers. And so, in an attempt to reduce the risks, the Arch-astronomer of Krull has bargained with Fate to sacrifice two men at the moment of launch. Fate, in His turn, has agreed to smile on the space ship. A neat barter, is it not?”
“And we’re the sacrifices,” said Rincewind.
“Yes.”
“I thought Fate didn’t go in for that sort of bargaining. I thought Fate was implacable,” said Rincewind.
“Normally, yes. But you two have been thorns in his side for some time. He specified that the sacrifices should be you. He allowed you to escape from the pirates. He allowed you to drift into the Circumfence. Fate can be one mean god at times.”
There was a pause. The frog sighed and wandered off under the table.
“But you can help us?” prompted Twoflower.
“You amuse me,” said the Lady. “I have a sentimental streak. You’d know that, if you were gamblers. So for a little while I rode in a frog’s mind and you kindly rescued me, for, as we all know, no-one likes to see pathetic and helpless creatures swept to their death.”
“Thank you,” said Rincewind.
“The whole mind of Fate is bent against you,” said the Lady. “But all I can do is give you one chance. Just one, small chance. The rest is up to you.”
She vanished.
“Gosh,” said Twoflower, after a while. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a goddess.”
The door swung open. Garhartra entered, holding a wand in front of him. Behind him were two guards, armed more conventionally with swords.
“Ah,” he said conversationally. “You are ready, I see.”
Ready, said a voice inside Rincewind’s head.
The bottle that the wizard had flung some eight hours earlier had been hanging in the air, imprisoned by magic in its own personal time-field. But during all those hours the original mana of the spell had been slowly leaking away until the total magical energy was no longer sufficient to hold it against the Universe’s own powerful normality field, and when that happened Reality snapped back in a matter of microseconds. The visible sign of this was that the bottle suddenly completed the last part of its parabola and burst against the side of the Guestmaster’s head, showering the guards with glass and jellyfish wine.
Rincewind grabbed Twoflower’s arm, kicked the nearest guard in the groin, and dragged the startled tourist into the corridor. Before the stunned Garhartra had sunk to the floor his two guests were already pounding across distant flagstones.
Rincewind skidded around a corner and found himself on a balcony that ran around the four sides of a courtyard. Below them, most of the floor of the yard was taken up by an ornamental pond in which a few terrapins sunbathed among the lily leaves.
And ahead of Rincewind were a couple of very surprised wizards wearing the distinctive dark blue and black robes of trained hydrophobes. One of them, quicker on the uptake than his companion, raised a hand and began the first words of a spell.
There was a short sharp noise by Rincewind’s side. Twoflower had spat. The hydrophobe screamed and dropped his hand as though it had been stung.
The other didn’t have time to move before Rincewind was on him, fists swinging wildly. One stiff punch with the weight of terror behind it sent the man tumbling over the balcony rail and into the pond, which did a very strange thing; the water smacked aside as though a large invisible balloon had been dropped into it, and the hydrophobe hung screaming in his own revulsion field.
Twoflower watched him in amazement until Rincewind snatched at his shoulder and indicated a likely looking passage. They hurried down it, leaving the remaining hydrophobe writhing on the floor and snatching at his damp hand. For a while there was some shouting behind them, but they scuttled along a cross corridor and another courtyard and soon left the sounds of pursuit behind. Finally Rincewind picked a safe looking door, peered around it, found the room beyond to be unoccupied, dragged Twoflower inside, and slammed it behind him. Then he leaned against it, wheezing horribly.