The Last Hero (the discworld series)

by Terry Pratchett

  ‘No one's blaming you, Harry,’ said Cohen.

  ‘Huh, not that I could get sharks,’ said Harry. ‘I should've known better when Johnny No Hands told me they were sharks that hadn't grown all their fins yet, but all they did was swim around squeaking happily and start beggin' for fish. When I throw people into a torture tank it's to be torn to bits, not to get in touch with their inner self and be one with the cosmos.’

  ‘Shark'd be better than this fish,’ said Caleb, making a face.

  ‘Nah, shark tastes like piss,’ said Cohen. He sniffed. ‘Now that…’

  ‘Now that,’ said Truckle, ‘is what I call cookery.’

  They followed the smell through a maze of rocks to a cave. To the minstrel's amazement, each man drew his sword as they approached.

  ‘You can't trust cookery,’ said Cohen, apparently as an attempt at an explanation.

  ‘But you've just been fighting monstrous mad devil fish!’ said the minstrel.

  ‘No, the priests were mad, the fish were… hard to tell with fish. Anyway, you know where you stand with a mad priest, but someone cooking as well as that right up here – well, that's a mystery.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mysteries get you killed.’

  ‘You're not dead, though.’

  Cohen's sword swished through the air. The minstrel thought he heard it sizzle.

  ‘I solve mysteries,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. With your sword… like Carelinus untied the Tsortean Knot?’

  ‘Don't know anything about any knots, lad.’

  In a clear space among the rocks, a stew was cooking over a fire and an elderly lady was working at her embroidery. It was not a scene the minstrel would have expected out here, even though the lady was somewhat… youngly dressed for a grandmother, and the message on the sampler she was sewing, surrounded by little flowers, was EAT COLD STEEL PIGDOG.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Cohen, sheathing his sword. ‘I thought I recognised the handiwork back there. How're you doing, Vena?’

  ‘You're looking well, Cohen,’ said the woman, as calmly as though she had been expecting them. ‘You boys want some stew?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Truckle, grinning. ‘Let the bard try it first, though.’

  ‘Shame on you, Truckle,’ said the woman, putting aside her embroidery.

  ‘Well, you did drug me and steal a load of jewels off me last time we met…’

  ‘That was forty years ago, man! Anyway, you left me alone to fight that band of goblins.’

  ‘I knew you'd beat the goblins, though.’

  ‘I knew you didn't need the jewels. Morning, Evil Harry. Hello, boys. Pull up a rock. Who's the thin streak of misery?’

  ‘This is the bard,’ said Cohen. ‘Bard, this is Vena the Raven-Haired.’

  ‘What?’ said the bard. ‘No, she's not! Even I've heard of Vena the Raven-Haired, and she's a tall young woman with – oh…’

  Vena sighed. ‘Yes, the old stories do hang around so, don't they?’ she said, patting her grey hair. ‘And it's Mrs McGarry now, boys.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you'd settled down,’ said Cohen, dipping the ladle into the stew and tasting it. ‘Married an innkeeper, didn't you? Hung up your sword, had kids…’

  ‘Grandchildren,’ said Mrs McGarry, proudly. But then the proud smile faded. ‘One of them's taken over the inn, but the other's a paper-maker.’

  ‘Running an inn's a good trade,’ said Cohen. ‘But there's not much heroing in wholesale stationery. A paper cut's just not the same.’ He smacked his lips. ‘This is good stuff, girl.’

  ‘Its funny,’ said Vena. ‘I never knew I had the talent, but people will come miles for my dumplings.’

  ‘No change there, then,’ said Truckle the Uncivil. ‘Hur, hur, hur.’

  ‘Truckle,’ said Cohen, ‘remember when you told me to tell you when you were bein' too uncivil?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That was one of those times.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mrs McGarry, smiling sweetly at the blushing Truckle, ‘I was sitting around after Charlie died, and I thought, well, is this it? I've just got to wait for the Grim Reaper? And then… there was this scroll…’

  ‘What scroll?’ said Cohen and Evil Harry together. Then they stared at one another.

  ‘Y'see,’ said Cohen, reaching into his pack, ‘I found this old scroll, showing a map of how to get to the Mountains and all the little tricks for getting past—’

  ‘Me too,’ said Harry.

  ‘You never told me!’

  ‘I'm a DarkLord, Cohen,’ said Evil Harry patiently. ‘I'm not supposed to be Captain Helpful.’

  ‘Tell me where you found it, at least.’

  ‘Oh, in some ancient sealed tomb we was despoilin'.’

  ‘I found mine in an old storeroom back in the Empire,’ said Cohen.

  ‘Mine was left in my inn by a traveller all in black,’ said Mrs McGarry.

  In the silence, the minstrel said, ‘Um? Excuse me?’

  ‘What?’ said all three together.

  ‘Is it just me,’ said the minstrel, ‘or are we missing something here?’

  ‘Like what?’ demanded Cohen.

  ‘Well, these scrolls all tell you how to get to the mountain, a perilous trek that no one has ever survived?’

  ‘Yes? So?’

  ‘So… um… who wrote the scrolls?’

  Offler the Crocodile looked up from the playing board which was, in fact, the world.

  ‘All right, who doth he belong to?’ he lisped. ‘We've got a clever one here.’

  There was a general craning of necks among the assembled deities, and then one put up his hand.

  ‘And you are…?’ said Offler.

  ‘The Almighty Nuggan. I'm worshipped in parts of Borogravia. The young man was raised in my faith.’

  ‘What do Nugganoteth believe in?’

  ‘Er… me. Mostly me. And followers are forbidden to eat chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic.’

  Several of the gods winced.

  ‘When you prohibit you don't meth about, do you?’ said Offler.

  ‘No sense in forbidding broccoli, is there? That sort of approach is very old-fashioned,’ said Nuggan. He looked at the minstrel. ‘He's never been particularly bright up till now. Shall I smite him? There's bound to be some garlic in that stew, Mrs McGarry looks the type.’

  Offler hesitated. He was a very old god, who had arisen from steaming swamps in hot, dark lands. He had survived the rise and fall of more modern and certainly more beautiful gods by developing, for a god, a certain amount of wisdom.

  Besides, Nuggan was one of the newer gods, all full of hellfire and self-importance and ambition. Offler was not bright, but he had some vague inkling that for long-term survival gods needed to offer their worshippers something more than a mere lack of thunderbolts. And he felt an ungodlike pang of sympathy for any human whose god banned chocolate and garlic. Anyway, Nuggan had an unpleasant moustache. No god had any business with a fussy little moustache like that.

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking the dice box. ‘It'll add to the run.’

  Cohen pinched out the end of his ragged cigarette, stuffed it behind his ear, and looked up at the green ice.

  ‘It's not too late to turn back,’ said Evil Harry. ‘If anyone wanted to, I mean.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Cohen, without looking around. ‘Besides, someone's not playing fair.’

  ‘Funny, really,’ said Vena. ‘All my life I've gone adventuring with old maps found in old tombs and so on, and I never ever worried about where they came from. It's one of those things you never think about, like who leaves all the weapons and keys and medicine kits lying around in the unexplored dungeons.’

  ‘Someone be setting a trap,’ said Boy Willie.

  ‘Probably. Won't be the first trap I've walked into,’ said Cohen.

  ‘We're going up against the gods, Cohen,’ said Harry. ‘A man does that, a man's got to be sure of his luck.’

  ‘Mine's wor
ked up to now,’ said Cohen. He reached out and touched the rock face in front of him. ‘It's warm.’

  ‘But it's got ice on!’ said Harry.

  ‘Yeah. Strange, eh?’ said Cohen. ‘It's just like the scrolls said. And see the way the snow's sticking to it? It's the magic. Well… here goes…’

  Archchancellor Ridcully decided that the crew needed to be trained. Ponder Stibbons pointed out that they were going into the completely unexpected, and Ridcully ruled therefore that they should be given some unexpected training.

  Rincewind, on the other hand, said that they were heading for certain death, which everyone managed eventually with no training whatsoever.

  Later he said that Leonard's device would do, though. After five minutes on it, certain death seemed like a release.

  ‘He's thrown up again,’ said the Dean.

  ‘He's getting better at it, though,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

  ‘How can you say that? Last time it was a whole ten seconds before he let go!’

  ‘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 days 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 carefully 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 bowling 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 gnh 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 that 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 other's 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 wi
ll 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.