The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett [62]
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.
*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.
*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.
*An interesting metaphor. To nocturnal trolls, of course, the dawn of time lies in the future.
*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.”
* 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 nonexistence 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.
About the Author
Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?
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Unanimous Praise For Terry Pratchett
“For lighthearted escape with a thoughtful center, you can’t do better than…any…Discworld novel.”
—Washington Post Book World
“If I were making my list of Best Books of the Twentieth Century, Terry Pratchett’s would be most of them.”
—Elizabeth Peters
“Consistently, inventively mad…wild and wonderful!”
—Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
“Simply the best humorous writer of the twentieth century.”
—Oxford Times
“A brilliant story—teller with a sense of humour…whose infectious fun completely engulfs you…The Dickens of the twentieth century”
—Mail on Sunday (London)
“If you are unfamiliar with Pratchett’s unique blend of philosophical badinage interspersed with slapstick, you are on the threshold of a mind—expanding