The Last Hero (Discworld 27)

"Yes, but he's throwing up more, and it's going further," said the Chair as they strolled away. The Dean looked up. It was hard to see the flying device in the shadows of the tarpaulin-covered barge. Sheets were spread over the more interesting bits. There were strong smells of glue and varnish. The Librarian, who tended to get involved in things, was hanging peacefully from a spar and hammering wooden pegs into a plank. "It'll be balloons, you mark my words." said the Dean. "I've got a mental picture. Balloons and sails and rigging and so on. Probably an anchor, too. Fanciful stuff"

"Over in the Agatean Empire they have kites big enough to carry men," said the Chair. "Perhaps he's just building a bigger kite, then." In the distance Leonard of Quirm was sitting in a pool of light, sketching. Occasionally he'd hand a page to a waiting apprentice, who would hurry away. "Did you see the design he came up with yesterday?" said the Dean. "Had this idea that they might have to get outside the machine to repair it so - so he designed a sort of device to let you fly around with a dragon on your back! Said it was for emergencies!"

"What kind of emergency would be worse than having a dragon strapped to your back?" said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

"Exactly! The man lives in an ivory tower!"

"Does he? I thought Vetinari had him locked up in some attic."

"Well, I mean, years of that is going to give a man a very limited vision, in my humble opinion. Nothing much to do but tick the clays off on the wall."

"They say he paints good pictures," said the Chair. "Well, pictures, said the Dean dismissively. "But they say that his are so good the eyes follow you round the room."

"Really? What does the rest of the face do?"

"That stays where it is, I suppose." said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "To me, this does not sound good," said the Dean as they wandered out into the daylight. At his desk, while considering the problem of steering a craft in thin air, Leonard carefullv drew a rose. Evil Harry shut his eyes. "This does not feel good." he said. "It's easy when you get used to it." said Cohen. "It's just a matter of how you look at things." Evil Harry opened his eyes again. He was standing on a broad, greenish plain, which curved down gently to right and left. It was like being on a high, grassy ridge. It stretched off into a cloudy distance. "It's just a stroll," said Boy Willie, beside him. "Look, my feet aren't the problem here," said Evil Harry. "My feet aren't quarrelling. It's my brain."

"It helps if you think of the ground as being behind you," said Boy Willie. "No," said Evil Harry. "It doesn't." The strange feature of the mountain was this: once a foot was set on it, direction became a matter of personal choice. To put it another way, gravity was optional. It stayed under your feet, no matter which way your feet were pointing. Evil Harry wondered why it was affecting only him. The Horde seemed entirely unmoved. Even Mad Hamish's horrible wheelchair was howling along happily in a direction which, up until now, Harry had thought of as vertical. It was, he thought, probably because Evil Lords were generally brighter than heroes. You needed some functioning brain cells to do the payroll even for half a dozen henchmen. And Evil Harry's braincells were telling him to look straight ahead and try to believe that he was strolling along a broad, happy ridge and on no account to turn around, to even think about turning round, because behind him was gnh gnk gnk ... "Steady on!" said Boy Willie, steadying his arm. "Listen to your feet. They know what they're about." To Harry's horror, Cohen chose this moment to turn around. "Will you look at that view!" he said. "I can see everybody's house from up here!"

"Oh, no, please, no." mumbled Evil Harry, flinging himself forward and holding on to the mountain. "It's great, isn't it?" said Truckle. "Seein' all them seas sort of hanging right over you like- What's up with Harry?"

"Just a bit poorly," said Vena. To Cohen's surprise, the minstrel seemed quite at home with the view. "I came from up in the mountains," he explained. "You get a head for heights up there."

"I bin to everywhere I can see," said Cohen, looking around. "Been there, done that... been there again, done it twice ... nowhere left where I ain't been ..."

The minstrel looked him up and down, and a kind of understanding dawned. I know why you are doing this now, he thought. Thank goodness for a classical education. Now, what was the quote? ""And Carelinus wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer"," he said. "Who's that bloke? You mentioned him before," said Cohen. "You haven't heard of the Emperor Carelinus?"

"Nope."

"But... he was the greatest conquerer dial ever lived! His empire spanned the entire Disc! Except for the Counterweight Continent and Fourecks, of course."

"I don't blame him. You can't get a good beer in one of 'em for love nor money, and the others a bugger to get to."

"Well, when he got as far as the coast of Muntab, it was said that he stood on the shore and wept. Some philosopher told him there were more worlds out there somewhere, and that he'd never be able to conquer them. Er ... that reminded me a bit of you." Cohen strolled along in silence for a moment. "Yeah," he said at last. "Yeah. I can see how that could be. Only not as cissy, obviously."

"It is now," said Ponder Stibbons, "T minus twelve hours." His audience, sitting on the deck, watched him with alert and polite incomprehension. "That means the flying machine will go over the Edge just before dawn tomorrow," Ponder explained. Everyone turned to Leonard, who was watching a seagull. "Mr da Quirm?" said Lord Vetinari. "What? Oh. Yes." Leonard blinked. "Yes. The device will be ready, although the privy is giving me problems." The Lecturer in Recent Runes fumbled in the capacious pockets of his robe. "Oh dear, I believe I have a bottle of something ... the sea always affects me that way, too."

"I was rather thinking of problems associated with the thin air and low gravity," said Leonard. "That's what the survivor of the Maria Pesto reported. But this afternoon I feel I can come up with a privy that, happily, utilises the thinner air of altitude to achieve the effect normally associated with gravity. Gentle suction is involved." Ponder nodded. He had a quick mind when it came to mechanical detail, and he'd already formed a mental picture. Now a mental eraser would be useful. "Er ... good," he said. "Well, most of the ships will fall behind the barge during the night. Even with magically assisted wind we dare not venture closer than thirty miles to the Rim. After that, we could be caught in the current and swept over the Edge." Rincewind, who had been leaning moodily over the rail and watching the water, turned at this. "How far are we from the island of Krull?" he said. "That place? Hundreds of miles." said Ponder. "We want to keep well away from those pirates."

"So ... we'll run straight into the Circumfence, then?" There was technically silence, although it was loud with unspoken thoughts. Each man was busy trying to think of a reason why it would have been far too much to expect him to have thought of this, while at the same time being a reason why someone else should have. The Circumfence was the biggest construction ever built; it extended almost a third of the way around the world. On the large island of Krull, an entire civilisation lived on what they recovered from it. They ate a lot of

sushi, and their dislike for the rest of the world was put down to permanent dyspepsia. In his chair, Lord Vetinari grinned in a thin, acid way. "Yes indeed." he said. "It extends for several thousands of miles, I understand. However, I gather the Krullians no longer keep captive seamen as slaves. They simply charge ruinous salvage rates."

"A few fireballs would blow the thing apart." said Ridcully. "That does rather require you to be very close to it, though," said Lord Vetinari. "That is to say, so close to the Rimfall that you would be destroying the very thing that is preventing you from being swept over the Edge. A knotty problem, gentlemen."

"Magic carpet," said Ridcully. "Just the job. We've got one in-"

"Not that close to the Edge, sir," said Ponder, dismally. "The thaumic field is very thin and there are some ferocious air currents." There was the crisp rattle of a big drawing pad being turned to the next page. "Oh, yes." said Leonard, more or less to himself. "Pardon me?" said the Patrician. "I did once design a simple means whereby entire fleets could be destroyed quite easily, my lord. Only as a technical exercise, of course."

"But with numbered parts and a list of instructions?" said the Patrician. "Why, yes, my lord. Of course. Otherwise it would not be a proper exercise. And I feel sure that with the help of these magical gentlemen we should be able to adapt it for this purpose." He gave them a bright smile. They looked at his drawing. Men were leaping from ships in flames, into a boiling sea. "You do this sort of thing as a hobby, do you?" said the Dean. "Oh, yes. There are no practical applications."

"But couldn't someone build something like that?" said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "You practically include glue and transfers!"

"Well. I daresay there are people like that," said Leonard diffidently. "But I am sure the government would put a stop to things before they went too far." And the smile on Lord Vetinari's face was one that probably even Leonard of Quirm, with all his genius, would never be able to capture on canvas. Very carefully, knowing that if they dropped one they probably wouldn't even know they'd dropped one, a team of students and apprentices lifted the cages of dragons into the racks under the rear of the flying machine. Occasionally one of the dragons hiccuped. Everyone present, bar one, would freeze. The exception was Rincewind, who would be crouched down behind a pile of timber many yards away. "They've ail been well fed on Leonard's special feed and should be quite docile for four or five hours." said Ponder, pulling him out for the third time. "The first two stages were given their meals with a carefully timed interval, and the first lot should be in a mood to flame just as you go over the Rimfall."

"What if we're delayed?" Ponder gave this some deep thought. "Whatever you do, don't be delayed," he said. "Thank you."

"The ones that you'll be taking with you in flight may need feeding, too. We've loaded a mixture of naphtha, rock oil and anthracite dust."