Thud! (Discworld 34)

There was more thoughtful silence.

"Do you think this thing could jump fences?" said Vimes.

"I"m game to give it a try, sir," said Willikins. "I think the wizards put some thought into all this."

"And how fast do you think it could go, for the sake of argument?" said Vimes.

"Dunno, sir. But I"ve got a feeling it might be pretty fast. A hundred miles in an hour, maybe?"

"You really think so? That means we could be halfway there in a couple of hours!"

"Well, you did say you wanted to get there fast, sir," said Willikins.

This time the silence went on longer before Vimes said, "All right, stop somewhere. I want to make sure that everyone knows what we"re going to do."

"Happy to do that, sir," said Willikins. "It"ll give me a chance to tie my hat on."

What Vimes remembered most of all about that journey - and there was so much of it he wanted to forget - was the silence. And the softness.

Oh, he could feel the wind in his face, but it was only a breeze, even when the ground was a flat green blur. The air was shaping itself around them. When Vimes experimentally held up a piece of paper a foot above his head, it blew away in an instant.

The corn exploded, too. As the coach approached, the green shoots grew out of the ground as if dragged and then burst like fireworks.

The corn belt was giving way to cattle country when Willikins said: "You know, sir, this thing steers itself. Watch."

He lowered the reins as a patch of woodland approached. The scream had hardly formed in Vimes"s throat before the coach curved around the woodland and then swung delicately back on to its original course.

"Don"t do that again, please!" said Vimes.

"All right, sir, but it"s steering itself. I don"t think I could make it run into anything."

"Don"t try!" Vimes said quickly. "And I swear I saw a cow explode back there! Keep us away from towns and people, will you?"

Behind the coach, turnips and rocks leapt into the air and bounced away in the opposite direction. Vimes hoped they wouldn"t get into trouble about that.

The other thing he noticed was that the landscape ahead was strangely bluish, while behind them it had a relatively red tint. He didn"t like to point this out, though, in case it sounded strange.

They had to stop twice to get directions, and were twenty miles from Koom Valley at half past five. There was a coaching inn. They sat out in its yard. No one spoke much. Apart from the speedhungry Willikins, the only people not shaken by the journey were Sybil and Young Sam, who seemed quite happy, and Detritus, who had watched the world skim past with every sign of enjoyment. Brick was still face-down on the coach roof, holding tight.

"Ten hours," said Fred Colon. "And that included lunch and stoppin" to be sick. I can"t believe it ..."

But as it happened, it was all blamed on people from another world, so that was all right.

"I don"t think people are s"posed to go this fast," Nobby moaned. "I fink my brain"s still back home."

"Well, if we"re going to have to wait for it to catch up, Nobby, I"ll buy a house here, shall I?" said Fred.

Nerves were frayed, brains were jogging behind ... This is why I don"t like magic, thought Vimes. But we"re here, and it"s amazing how the inn"s beer has helped recovery.

"We might even be able to have a quick look at Koom Valley before it gets dark," he ventured, to general groaning.

"No, Sam! Everyone needs a meal and a rest!" said Sybil. "Let"s go into town like proper people, nice and slowly, and everyone will be fresh for tomorrow."

"Lady Sybil is right, commander," said Bashfullsson. "I wouldn"t advise going up to the valley at night, even at this time of the year. It"s so easy to get lost."

"In a valley?" said Vimes.

"Oh yes, sir," Cheery chimed in. "You"ll see why, sir. And mostly, if you get lost, you die."