Chapter I
It is an ancient saying that whosoever delves into things that man was not meant to know shall be struck down by very heavy lightning and rained upon mercilessly. As a matter of fact, most of the time the person ends up exploding themselves into millions of pieces anyway, which is the main reason that it is not generally considered a great idea to delve into that kind of knowledge. Men who say, "I wonder what happens if I put this enormously potentially magical, very occult stone here in precisely the way the ancients warned me not to," do not usually live long enough to pass on their genes. It is a very crude form of 'survival of the fittest', and generally it works fairly well.
Of course, if it weren't for the fact that many of these things were dangerous, some of these discoveries could become quite fantastic. For example, the invention of the mechanical clock meant that people didn't have to worry unnecessarily about demons and were not forced to visit the Wizard's Quarter with complaints about lurking beings from the Dungeon Dimensions breaking free into their houses and eating their popcorn.
Despite all this, Discworld inhabitants maintained an attitude of healthy skepticism toward any new inventions, since the inevitable outcome seems to be that some sort of occult being lurks into the world, causes a series of unfortunate events, and slinks away, leaving behind a rather large mess for the janitors to clean up. This attitude is actually, overall, an improvement over one that welcomed any and all inventions, which would be rather suicidal.
This is a story about a man who thought that his forefathers were completely wrong, and thus went about proving it. It is also a story about the gods, and a story about a number of other people who apparently got into the story just for kicks. However, as is already well known by most of the population, you never get anywhere if you give credit to the people who really deserve it. So, in the interest of time, the story must unfortunately begin.
* * *
The dawn comes.
Great Atu'in the World Turtle's magnificent bulk traverses easily across the astral planes, sending scorching flames into the soul if you happen to be of a poetic nature. He turns His great head, seeking a comet, or possibly an asteroid, for His lunch. On His gigantic shell reside the four great elephants upon whose broad shoulders the Disc rotates.
The Disc, which is of course flat, is expands to include a postcard view of the Rajai Mountain Range near the Hub of the world. Magnificent spires of snow and ice jut up from the ground in a pattern that gracefully spirals inward as it nears the center. Actually, a closer examination would reveal that they are in fact going in a fairly lopsided, angular, and completely irregular sequence that in no way resembles a spiral, but in the face of all evidence its inhabitants have generally chosen to ignore this.
After all, it is the only attractive feature in the region.
Loren Haifanop struggled with the snow as he attempted, for what seemed to be the one-hundredth time, to scale the dreaded Mount Sinoapeu, third-highest mountain in the Rajai Range. A silent crowd below was waiting breathlessly to see whether it would be a freak avalanche that stopped him this time. Last time, it had been a sudden chasm that would have killed him if he had not drawn back just in time. As it was, he had to be in a hut with the local healer for sixteen weeks, and had broken approximately eight bones.
Miraculously (or so thought the crowd), Loren did not seem to be halting this time. They crowded together for a look, all the better to watch him fall from the mountain as a concealed boulder from inside a little crack that no one had noticed before hit him in the chest.
As he fell, one man, whose garments were those of a stranger – bright purple - smartly took out a red notebook and began to take notes. They looked something like this:
Man Falls Down Again
It Was A Boulder This Time
Last Time It Was A Crevice
Before That It Was A Freak Gale
No One Here Knows What It was Before That, They Were Too Scared to
Watch
These notes were actually written in Ankh-Morporkian, not Hublandish, which was one reason why they made no sense to an inquiring villager, who was poking his rather overlarge nose around to sniff for trouble. What they did do is ensure that the man in question was forced to hurry off before they went into the implications of traditional, sacrificial stew made from human flesh.
* * *
And what is the Discworld, do you ask?
The Discworld is a place of magic, where eight is of occult significance and must never, ever be spoken by a wizard.
It is a border between reality and unreality, with the result that lots of rather stupid and chancy things tend to occur within its range. It is also the place, roughly, where Rincewind the failed wizard is currently attempting to dodge a thrown half brick by a very angry man. It would have been better if he hadn't known that the man in question was at the head of a very large and angry mob.
He realized that a wizard (the Dean, he thought, from the way that it seemed like a small portable mountain was tracking him down) was in the crowd when a flash of octarine fire whirled by his ear. Panicking, he ducked into a side alley and stood their, panting, his gray robe camouflaging perfectly with the alley wall. His pursuers seemed to believe he had become invisible. Rincewind heaved a sigh of relief until he realized that on second thoughts, the mob might simply not have wanted to enter this alley.
A dagger seemed to materialize an inch from his throat. "Don't move," said a quiet, deadly voice. "Give me all your money," it added in the same, soft tones. Two men, apparently thugs, emerged from the shadows and crouched threateningly over him, apparently to ensure that he kept his promise. Rincewind felt that it was time to do something.
"What?" he asked.
The attacker frowned, momentarily puzzled. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. "What do you mean, what?" he jeered. "I said, give me all your money!"
"Yeah, but you also told me not to move," Rincewind pointed out logically. "How am I supposed to give you my money if I can't move?"
Unfortunately for the mugger, intelligence was not his strong point. "Well…" he began, uncomfortably aware of the two men at his side, who would gladly abandon him for someone with greater capabilities. "I suppose so." He nodded to the thugs, who reluctantly drew back, and then himself stepped back. "Now, if you would be so good -" he said to the empty air where Rincewind had been. "Damn," he added conversationally.