"No matter what." Rincewind gave a brave little smile. "Especially no matter what you hear."

He was vaguely cheered to see Coin's mouth become an "O" of terror.

"And then," he continued, "when you get back to the other side-"

"What shall I do?"

Rincewind hesitated. "I don't know," he said. "Anything you can. As much magic as you like. Anything. Just stop them. And...um..."

"Yes?"

Rincewind gazed up at the Thing, which was still staring into the light.

"If it...you know...if anyone gets out of this, you know, and everything is all right after all, sort of thing, I'd like you to sort of tell people I sort of stayed here. Perhaps they could sort of write it down somewhere. I mean, I wouldn't want a statue or anything," he added virtuously.

After a while he added, "I think you ought to blow your nose."

Coin did so, on the hem of his robe, and then shook Rincewind's hand solemnly.

"If ever you..." he began, "that is, you're the first...it's been a great...you see, I never really..." His voice trailed off, and then he said, "I just wanted you to know that."

"There was something else I was trying to say," said Rincewind, letting go of the hand. He looked blank for a moment, and then added, "Oh, yes. It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong."

"I'll try and remember," said Coin.

"It's very important," Rincewind repeated, almost to himself. "And now I think you'd better run."

Rincewind crept closer to the Thing. This particular one had chicken legs, but most of the rest of it was mercifully hidden in what looked like folded wings.

It was, he thought, time for a few last words. What he said now was likely to be very important. Perhaps they would be words that would be remembered, and handed down, and maybe even carved deeply in slabs of granite.

Words without too many curly letters in, therefore.

"I really wish I wasn't here," he muttered.

He hefted the sock, whirled it once or twice, and smashed the Thing on what he hoped was its kneecap.

It gave a shrill buzz, spun wildly with its wings creaking open, lunged vaguely at Rincewind with its vulture head and got another sockful of sand on the upswing.

Rincewind looked around desperately as the Thing staggered back, and saw Coin still standing where he had left him. To his horror he saw the boy begin to walk toward him, hands raised instinctively to fire the magic which, here, would doom both of them.

"Run away, you idiot!" he screamed, as the Thing began to gather itself for a counter-attack. From out of nowhere he found the words, "You know what happens to boys who are bad!"

Coin went pale, turned and ran toward the light. He moved as though through treacle, fighting against the entropy slope. The distorted image of the world turned inside out hovered a few feet away, then inches, wavering uncertainly...

A tentacle curled around his leg, tumbling him forward.

He flung his hands out as he fell, and one of them touched snow. It was immediately grabbed by something else that felt like a warm, soft leather glove, but under the gentle touch was a grip as tough as tempered steel and it tugged him forward, also dragging whatever it was that had caught him.

Light and grainy dark flicked around him and suddenly he was sliding over cobbles slicked with ice.

The Librarian let go his hold and stood over Coin with a length of heavy wooden beam in his hand. For a moment the ape reared against the darkness, the shoulder, elbow and wrist of his right arm unfolding in a poem of applied leverage, and in a movement as unstoppable as the dawn of intelligence brought it down very heavily. There was a squashy noise and an offended screech, and the burning pressure on Coin's leg vanished.

The dark column wavered. There were squeals and thumps coming from it, distorted by distance.

Coin struggled to his feet and started to run back into the dark, but this time the Librarian's arm blocked his path.

"We can't just leave him in there!"

The ape shrugged.

There was another crackle from the dark, and then a moment of almost complete silence.

But only almost complete. Both of them thought they heard, a long way off but very distinct, the sound of running feet fading into the distance.

They found an echo in the outside world. The ape glanced around, and then pushed Coin hurriedly to one side as something squat and battered and with hundreds of little legs barrelled across the stricken courtyard and, without so much as pausing in its stride, leapt into the disappearing darkness, which flickered for one last time and vanished.

There was a sudden flurry of snow across the air where it had been.

Coin wrenched free of the Librarian's grip and ran into the circle, which was already turning white. His feet scuffed up a sprinkle of fine sand.

"He didn't come out!" he said.

"Oook," said the Librarian, in a philosophic manner.

"I thought he'd come out. You know, just at the last minute."

"Oook?"

Coin looked closely at the cobbles, as if by mere concentration he could change what he saw. "Is he dead?"

"Oook," observed the Librarian, contriving to imply that Rincewind was in a region where even things like time and s.p.a.ce were a bit iffy, and that it was probably not very useful to speculate as to his exact state at this point in time, if indeed he was at any point in time at all, and that, all in all, he might even turn up tomorrow or, for that matter, yesterday, and finally that if there was any chance at all of surviving then Rincewind almost certainly would.

"Oh," said Coin.

He watched the Librarian shuffle around and head back for the Tower of Art, and a desperate loneliness overcame him.

"I say!" he yelled.

"Oook?"

"What should I do now?"

"Oook?"

Coin waved vaguely at the desolation.

"You know, perhaps I could do something about all this?" he said in a voice tilting on the edge of terror. "Do you think that would be a good idea? I mean, I could help people. I'm sure you'd like to be human again, wouldn't you?"

The Librarian's everlasting smile hoisted itself a little further up his face, just enough to reveal his teeth.

"Okay, perhaps not," said Coin hurriedly, "but there's other things I could do, isn't there?"

The Librarian gazed at him for some time, then dropped his eyes to the boy's hand. Coin gave a guilty start, and opened his fingers.

The ape caught the little silver ball neatly before it hit the ground and held it up to one eye. He sniffed it, shook it gently, and listened to it for a while.

Then he wound up his arm and flung it away as hard as possible.

"What-" Coin began, and landed full length in the snow when the Librarian pushed him over and dived on top of him.

The ball curved over at the top of its arc and tumbled down, its perfect path interrupted suddenly by the ground. There was a sound like a harp string breaking, a brief babble of incomprehensible voices, a rush of hot wind, and the G.o.ds of the Disc were free.

The were very very angry. angry.

"There is nothing we can do, is there?" said Creosote.

"No," said Conina.

"The ice is going to win, isn't it?" said Creosote.

"Yes," said Conina.

"No," said Nijel.

He was trembling with rage, or possibly with cold, and was nearly as pale as the glaciers that rumbled past below them.

Conina sighed. "Well, just how do you think-" she began.

"Take me down somewhere a few minutes ahead of them," said Nijel.

"I really don't see how that would help."

"I wasn't asking your opinion," said Nijel, quietly. "Just do it. Put me down a little way ahead of them so I've got a while to get sorted out."

"Get what sorted out?"

Nijel didn't answer.

"I said said," said Conina, "get what-"

"Shut up!"

"I don't see why-"

"Look," said Nijel, with the patience that lies just short of axe-murdering. "The ice is going to cover the whole world, right? Everyone's going to die, okay? Except for us for a little while, I suppose, until these horses want their, their, their oats or the lavatory or whatever, which isn't much use to us except maybe Creosote will just about have time to write a sonnet or something about how cold it is all of a sudden, and the whole of human history is about to be sc.r.a.ped up and in these circ.u.mstances I would like very much to make it completely clear that I am not about to be argued with, is that absolutely understood?"

He paused for breath, trembling like a harpstring.

Conina hesitated. Her mouth opened and shut a few times, as though she was considering arguing, and then she thought better of it.

They found a small clearing in a pine forest a mile or two ahead of the herd, although the sound of it was clearly audible and there was a line of steam above the trees and the ground was dancing like a drumtop.

Nijel strolled to the middle of the clearing and made a few practice swings with his sword. The others watched him thoughtfully.

"If you don't mind," whispered Creosote to Conina, "I'll be off. It's at times like this that sobriety loses its attractions and I'm sure the end of the world will look a lot better through the bottom of a gla.s.s, if it's all the same to you. Do you believe in Paradise, o peach-cheeked blossom?"

"Not as such, no."

"Oh," said Creosote. "Well, in that case we probably won't be seeing each other again." He sighed. "What a waste. All this was just because of a geas. Um. Of course, if by some unthinkable chance-"

"Goodbye," said Conina.

Creosote nodded miserably, wheeled the horse and disappeared over the treetops.

Snow was shaking down from the branches around the clearing. The thunder of the approaching glaciers filled the air.

Nijel started when she tapped him on the shoulder, and dropped his sword.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, fumbling desperately in the snow.

"Look, I'm not prying or anything," said Conina meekly, "but what exactly do you have in mind?"

She could see a rolling heap of bulldozed snow and soil bearing down on them through the forest, the mind-numbing sound of the leading glaciers now overlaid with the rhythmic snapping of tree trunks. And, advancing implacably above the treeline, so high that the eye mistook them at first for sky, the blue-green prows.

"Nothing," said Nijel, "nothing at all. We've just got to resist them, that's all there is to it. That's what we're here for."

"But it won't make any difference," she said.

"It will to me. If we're going to die anyway, I'd rather die like this. Heroically."

"Is it heroic to die like this?" said Conina.

"I think it is," he said, "and when it comes to dying, there's only one opinion that matters." think it is," he said, "and when it comes to dying, there's only one opinion that matters."

"Oh."

A couple of deer blundered into the clearing, ignored the humans in their blind panic, and rocketed away.

"You don't have to stay," said Nijel. "I've got this geas, you see."

Conina looked at the backs of her hands.

"I think I should," she said, and added, "You know, I thought maybe, you know, if we could just get to know one another better-"