"Bright colors, eh?" said Shoe. He looked up towards the university. Well,
that was odd; what were those little neon specks darting about?
"Hey, umm . . . "
"Rincewind."
"Rincewind. Look at this." Shoe handed the nail gun to Rincewind, who looked through the sight. "Look at the Tower of Art." Rincewind stiffened.
"Yes. A carbon copy[1], even. They look just like the one I saw." Rincewind rudely shoved the weapon into Shoe's hands and bolted for the staircase.
"And I never want to see another one again!"
"Wait, Mr. Rincewind," cried Visit imploringly.
Suddenly, there was a huge rumbling, and the building shook violently. Then there was a bobbing sensation.
"What was dat?" asked Detritus.
"The whole first floor is underwater," said Rincewind, wearily, coming back up the stairs more dripping wet then before. "And to answer your question, that was the building separating from the foundation."
* * *
Lord Havelock Vetinari shuffled through papers on his desk. Lurking in the shadows, an Assassin checked his crossbow silently. He would become famous if he was the one to kill Vetinari. The aforementioned was writing a law concerning the use of flying carpets in Ankh-Morpork. A large quantity of these, say three or four, had come in from Klatch, and Vetinari was determined to nip this thing in the bud. Suddenly, one of his younger and less important underlings came rushing in.
"Sir, the whole city is flooded. The Palace gates are about to-"
Suddenly, there was a roar as these gates broke open. The understudy looked panicked. Vetinari calmly deposited the papers on his desk in its drawers, rolled the law up quickly and stuffed it into his pocket, and simultaneously pushed two buttons on his chair. A chandelier in one corner of the room dropped swiftly, killing the assassin. Vetinari smiled and pushed two more buttons. A section of wall slid away and a small rowboat lowered out of it and clunked gently to the floor. Vetinari hopped in quickly just before the wave hit. He started rowing vigorously out of the main room; it would be flooded soon. As he passed the Understudy, he pulled him up.
"How did you prepare for that?' asked the Understudy with awe.
Vetinari simply smiled and gestured for the young man to row.
* * *
Up on Psudopolis Lane, which was on a hill and currently out of danger, Commander Vimes looked out the window and called and emergency meeting of all the Watch members to meet in the Convention Room.
"Right," he said when they were all seated. "The whole city is flooded. I am suspending operations and we will see if any of our fellow Watch brethren are still down there. If they are, we will go and get them. Captain Carrot!"
"Yessir!"
"Roll call!"
"Yessir!"
Carrot began the roll call and got all the way to 'D' before
"Sergeant Detritus? Sir, I don't think he's here."
"Detritus is a troll. He doesn't need air, and I don't think he can be washed away without a fight."
"Good point sir."
The roll began again, until
"Constable Shoe?"
"Reg is a zombie. He doesn't need to breathe either. Plus, he can't die"
"Very good sir."
The call continued until the dreaded
"Constable Visit? Sir, Visit isn't here."
"Gods help us," said Vimes.
* * *
"Okay. So we take this net launcher thing, climb the Tower of Art, and get the butterflies with it. Simple," said Reg Shoe.
"Why did you shoot me with that horrendous device!? I could've been killed!" said Visit crossly as he finished tearing a net off of him.
"Relax. Now we know it works. But how do we climb the Tower of Art? It's too slick with this rain."
"What if we just make a ladder and snag it on the tower when we float past. We are going to float by it, right?" said Visit, taking interest
"I dunno, Constuhbul. Maybe I could go down to der bottom and pull der building?"
"Are you that strong?" asked Rincewind skeptically.
"Yeah, but I thinks dat der bottom is too far down."
"Good point," said Shoe. "Say, I know. Rincewind, hand me some of those chains. Thank you. Know, you see, I can weld them together with my fireball launcher, and Detritus can hold one end, and the other end will be attached to the bottom of the building. Then, I can make the ladder with some of these boards and my nail gun, and-"
"I'm going to have to climb up to the top of the tower of art and net the butterflies with that net launcher," predicted Rincewind dully.
"But of course."
* * *
Ankh-Morpork might never have existed. There were a few higher hills upon which upper class houses rested; making a ring around the sea that was Ankh-Morpork. It wasn't so much that the Ankh had flooded the city as the city had flooded the Ankh. There was nothing left standing above water in the crater save Lord Vetinari's palace, and some of the university buildings. And it was toward one of these that a small boxy building was floating.
* * *
"I hope Detritus is all right," said Constable Visit as he pulled a table apart and handed the top of it to Shoe.
"He's a troll, Visit. What can happen to a troll in a submerged city?" asked Shoe as he nailed the table top to a piece of floorboard.
Shoe's shoddy ladder was now sticking out of a skylight in the roof of the building. The roof was flat, and there was a staircase leading to it, but Shoe had decided it easier just to use the skylight. Constable Visit and Rincewind were tearing apart furniture and the floor for wood, while the Luggage began grabbing doors by their handles and pulling them down.
"Ahh, thank you . . ."
"Luggage, it's called"
"Luggage," said Shoe as he took the latest door and nailed it in place. Shoe was working from the bottom up, nailing things in at the bottom and pushing the ladder up to accommodate the next piece of furniture or floor.
"Okay. I think it's high enough now," said Shoe, setting down the nail gun. "We just need to get to the Tower of Art."
* * *
Across the Circle Sea, in a small desert town on the beach whose name is unpronounceable to all but those who had learned the Klatchian language at an early age, a fierce verbal fight was going on between a handful of people and the rest of the town.
"I tell you, he was the Great Wizard!" said the one called Desert Moth
"He was a fraud!" shouted a villager named Li. "Give it up!"
"But he was so nice!" cried Desert Moth's younger sister, Cactus Flower.
"Well, he's gone now, and you two have an awful lot of explain-"
And at that point, a huge tsunami wave hit the town.
* * *
Constable Shoe ducked underwater and walked down a story till he found the door. He walked out of the doorway to the building and felt around for the chain. He caught it, and gently eased himself down along down it. If he pulled too hard, there was a danger that an arm might come off.[2] He needed to talk to tell Detritus to turn right. He shinnied down the chain and found Detritus plodding silently along in the silt along the ground. In the distance, there was the wall surrounding the university, with a huge section knocked out of it. Detritus should head for that. A few yards away, the ruins of a pub were leeching beer into the water. Well, Shoe hoped it was beer; the light was dim. So dim he didn't notice the silent black cloaked figure gliding by the ruined bar, scythe gleaming even in the dull light.
* * *
"Put some muscle into it Miss Littlebottom! We have to find our missing comrades!" said Captain Carrot in a distressed manner. The boat carrying the search party
had entered an area of water where no landmarks were visible. As they paddled on, the watchman, Constable Dorfl suddenly exclaimed
"Look; A Boat!"
It was indeed a boat, a rowboat slightly smaller than the one they were in.
"Ho there!" cried Carrot.
"Hello," came the reply.
The boats floated closer together, and
"Lord Vetinari!?"
"Captain Carrot."
"Sir, what happened?"
"My palace was flooding, so, in order not to become trapped, I left." He indicated the man rowing. "This is James. Which way is Psudopolis Lane? I believe that is still above water?"
* * *
"Okay," said Shoe, reentering the room in which he had left Visit and Rincewind. "I got Detritus pointed in the right direction. We'll be there in a minute or two. Mr. Rincewind, you know what to do."
"It's always my lot in life," he said sadly. And at that point, there was a dull thud as the building hit the Tower of Art.
* * *
Fate smiled. He had hit it off well. The gods would thank him for this; perhaps he could even dredge up some Favors.
* * *
"All right. And finally, Luggage, if I don't come back, I want you to kill all of them. Okay, I'm ready." Rincewind looked around to see if he'd stirred up some compassion, or maybe fear. But they didn't know him, so compassion was unlikely, and they hadn't a clue of the strength and speed of the Luggage, so fear was out of the question. As it was, they all wore looks of stony-faced sadness and contemplation; none more so than Detritus, who had pulled himself back up using the chain. Rincewind was surprised he hadn't pulled the building down instead.
"Goodbye," said Rincewind, and started up the ladder with the net launcher on his back. He cleared the roof and found himself out in the rain, clinging to a futon. He wondered how this had happened. This didn't help, so he tightened his grip and pulled himself up along a torn up section of floorboard and then past a flattened barrel. On and on, he went. Once he looked back through the driving rain, and found he could no longer see the building. The Tower of Art was simply a dim, dark shape in front and above him.
Finally, he pulled himself past the last floorboard and onto the slippery shingles of the Tower of Art. He looked ahead. Yes, there were the Quantum Weather Butterflies. He unslung the weapon off his back and set the net level on 'Fine Mesh'. Suddenly, a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.
"HELLO, RINCEWIND"
Rincewind swallowed.
"Hello, Death. Listen, I am not going to die, understand?"
"I AM NOT HERE TO TAKE YOUR LIFE, RINCEWIND. I MERELY CAME TO TELL YOU THIS: THOUSANDS HAVE DIED ALREADY. IN FACT, A TIDAL WAVE HAS WASHED OUT THROUGH THE CIRCLE SEA AND KILLED MANY ON THE SHORES OF KLATCH."
"Not-"
"NO. NOT DESERT MOTH AND CACTUS FLOWER. THEY LIVE, AND ARE UNHARMED."
"I'm glad to hear they are alive. They rather reminded me of Twoflower's daughters."
"BUT IF YOU FAIL, RINCEWIND, AND THESE CREATURES GO UNCHECKED, THEY, TOO, WILL BE LOST. ANKH-MORPORK WILL BE LOST AS WELL, AND ITS POPULATION DECIMATED. I DON'T CARE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER WHAT BECOMES OF THEM, BUT I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW. NOW I MUST GO. WORK BECKONS."
Death left.
Rincewind was frightened. More frightened than he had ever been before. For in his hands were thousands, maybe millions, of lives. He nearly panicked. But he steadied his hand. He was going to do this. Under his feet, the Tower of Art rocked as it was buffeted on all sides by waves. The water was probably eighteen feet high now, and he didn't have much time. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. A fine mesh net shot out of the end of the weapon and caught all four of the butterflies. The weights on the corners came together, and speared a piece of wreckage. And the rain stopped. Then the clouds rolled away, and the sun shown down on Lake Ankh. It would, doubtlessly, take days to drain. Rincewind shinnied back down the ladder and into the building.
"You'll receive honors for this!" Constable Visit clapped him on the back.
"Really?"
"Yes, and maybe a gift," added Shoe somewhat enviously.
"Oh, no, now something bad's going to happen."
"Why do you say dat?"
"Whenever something is going my way, Fate intervenes and I have an Adventure."
Far above Rincewind, Fate was just preparing to do this.
"No," said Blind Io, "He's suffered enough for one day. Just once, let him receive just glory."
"Yep, I'll be smitten any minute now."
"No, Rincewind, you won't," said Constable Visit. "we're going right over to Unseen U, or what parts of it are above water, and all of us will testify that you saved us all. Now let's go get the butterflies before they sink. We need proof."
At that point, both the boats containing the search party and the one carrying Lord Vetinari pulled up at the building. Carrot looked in the window.
"Oh, hello. Would any of you know which way to Psudopolis- Is that you, Constable Visit?"
"Yessir, and Constable Shoe and Sergeant Detritus. And this is Rincewind, and he saved all of us."
* * *
"Well," said Blind Io as the picture of the Discworld faded away, "That was entertaining. Who's up for Star Crossed Lovers?"
* * *
Well, that's the END. Please send ideas and reviews; they are appreciated. And I will be back;
I am the Shadow!
----------------------- [1]Toys of most of Discworld's smaller animals were often made by capturing the creature and fitting a mold around it. However, Gold was too expensive, as was Silver, and everything else that wasn't toxic or expensive only became pliable at temperatures hot enough to kill Trolls.
[2] How many of you have simply watched a contact lens float away in the swimming pool?
"Hey, umm . . . "
"Rincewind."
"Rincewind. Look at this." Shoe handed the nail gun to Rincewind, who looked through the sight. "Look at the Tower of Art." Rincewind stiffened.
"Yes. A carbon copy[1], even. They look just like the one I saw." Rincewind rudely shoved the weapon into Shoe's hands and bolted for the staircase.
"And I never want to see another one again!"
"Wait, Mr. Rincewind," cried Visit imploringly.
Suddenly, there was a huge rumbling, and the building shook violently. Then there was a bobbing sensation.
"What was dat?" asked Detritus.
"The whole first floor is underwater," said Rincewind, wearily, coming back up the stairs more dripping wet then before. "And to answer your question, that was the building separating from the foundation."
* * *
Lord Havelock Vetinari shuffled through papers on his desk. Lurking in the shadows, an Assassin checked his crossbow silently. He would become famous if he was the one to kill Vetinari. The aforementioned was writing a law concerning the use of flying carpets in Ankh-Morpork. A large quantity of these, say three or four, had come in from Klatch, and Vetinari was determined to nip this thing in the bud. Suddenly, one of his younger and less important underlings came rushing in.
"Sir, the whole city is flooded. The Palace gates are about to-"
Suddenly, there was a roar as these gates broke open. The understudy looked panicked. Vetinari calmly deposited the papers on his desk in its drawers, rolled the law up quickly and stuffed it into his pocket, and simultaneously pushed two buttons on his chair. A chandelier in one corner of the room dropped swiftly, killing the assassin. Vetinari smiled and pushed two more buttons. A section of wall slid away and a small rowboat lowered out of it and clunked gently to the floor. Vetinari hopped in quickly just before the wave hit. He started rowing vigorously out of the main room; it would be flooded soon. As he passed the Understudy, he pulled him up.
"How did you prepare for that?' asked the Understudy with awe.
Vetinari simply smiled and gestured for the young man to row.
* * *
Up on Psudopolis Lane, which was on a hill and currently out of danger, Commander Vimes looked out the window and called and emergency meeting of all the Watch members to meet in the Convention Room.
"Right," he said when they were all seated. "The whole city is flooded. I am suspending operations and we will see if any of our fellow Watch brethren are still down there. If they are, we will go and get them. Captain Carrot!"
"Yessir!"
"Roll call!"
"Yessir!"
Carrot began the roll call and got all the way to 'D' before
"Sergeant Detritus? Sir, I don't think he's here."
"Detritus is a troll. He doesn't need air, and I don't think he can be washed away without a fight."
"Good point sir."
The roll began again, until
"Constable Shoe?"
"Reg is a zombie. He doesn't need to breathe either. Plus, he can't die"
"Very good sir."
The call continued until the dreaded
"Constable Visit? Sir, Visit isn't here."
"Gods help us," said Vimes.
* * *
"Okay. So we take this net launcher thing, climb the Tower of Art, and get the butterflies with it. Simple," said Reg Shoe.
"Why did you shoot me with that horrendous device!? I could've been killed!" said Visit crossly as he finished tearing a net off of him.
"Relax. Now we know it works. But how do we climb the Tower of Art? It's too slick with this rain."
"What if we just make a ladder and snag it on the tower when we float past. We are going to float by it, right?" said Visit, taking interest
"I dunno, Constuhbul. Maybe I could go down to der bottom and pull der building?"
"Are you that strong?" asked Rincewind skeptically.
"Yeah, but I thinks dat der bottom is too far down."
"Good point," said Shoe. "Say, I know. Rincewind, hand me some of those chains. Thank you. Know, you see, I can weld them together with my fireball launcher, and Detritus can hold one end, and the other end will be attached to the bottom of the building. Then, I can make the ladder with some of these boards and my nail gun, and-"
"I'm going to have to climb up to the top of the tower of art and net the butterflies with that net launcher," predicted Rincewind dully.
"But of course."
* * *
Ankh-Morpork might never have existed. There were a few higher hills upon which upper class houses rested; making a ring around the sea that was Ankh-Morpork. It wasn't so much that the Ankh had flooded the city as the city had flooded the Ankh. There was nothing left standing above water in the crater save Lord Vetinari's palace, and some of the university buildings. And it was toward one of these that a small boxy building was floating.
* * *
"I hope Detritus is all right," said Constable Visit as he pulled a table apart and handed the top of it to Shoe.
"He's a troll, Visit. What can happen to a troll in a submerged city?" asked Shoe as he nailed the table top to a piece of floorboard.
Shoe's shoddy ladder was now sticking out of a skylight in the roof of the building. The roof was flat, and there was a staircase leading to it, but Shoe had decided it easier just to use the skylight. Constable Visit and Rincewind were tearing apart furniture and the floor for wood, while the Luggage began grabbing doors by their handles and pulling them down.
"Ahh, thank you . . ."
"Luggage, it's called"
"Luggage," said Shoe as he took the latest door and nailed it in place. Shoe was working from the bottom up, nailing things in at the bottom and pushing the ladder up to accommodate the next piece of furniture or floor.
"Okay. I think it's high enough now," said Shoe, setting down the nail gun. "We just need to get to the Tower of Art."
* * *
Across the Circle Sea, in a small desert town on the beach whose name is unpronounceable to all but those who had learned the Klatchian language at an early age, a fierce verbal fight was going on between a handful of people and the rest of the town.
"I tell you, he was the Great Wizard!" said the one called Desert Moth
"He was a fraud!" shouted a villager named Li. "Give it up!"
"But he was so nice!" cried Desert Moth's younger sister, Cactus Flower.
"Well, he's gone now, and you two have an awful lot of explain-"
And at that point, a huge tsunami wave hit the town.
* * *
Constable Shoe ducked underwater and walked down a story till he found the door. He walked out of the doorway to the building and felt around for the chain. He caught it, and gently eased himself down along down it. If he pulled too hard, there was a danger that an arm might come off.[2] He needed to talk to tell Detritus to turn right. He shinnied down the chain and found Detritus plodding silently along in the silt along the ground. In the distance, there was the wall surrounding the university, with a huge section knocked out of it. Detritus should head for that. A few yards away, the ruins of a pub were leeching beer into the water. Well, Shoe hoped it was beer; the light was dim. So dim he didn't notice the silent black cloaked figure gliding by the ruined bar, scythe gleaming even in the dull light.
* * *
"Put some muscle into it Miss Littlebottom! We have to find our missing comrades!" said Captain Carrot in a distressed manner. The boat carrying the search party
had entered an area of water where no landmarks were visible. As they paddled on, the watchman, Constable Dorfl suddenly exclaimed
"Look; A Boat!"
It was indeed a boat, a rowboat slightly smaller than the one they were in.
"Ho there!" cried Carrot.
"Hello," came the reply.
The boats floated closer together, and
"Lord Vetinari!?"
"Captain Carrot."
"Sir, what happened?"
"My palace was flooding, so, in order not to become trapped, I left." He indicated the man rowing. "This is James. Which way is Psudopolis Lane? I believe that is still above water?"
* * *
"Okay," said Shoe, reentering the room in which he had left Visit and Rincewind. "I got Detritus pointed in the right direction. We'll be there in a minute or two. Mr. Rincewind, you know what to do."
"It's always my lot in life," he said sadly. And at that point, there was a dull thud as the building hit the Tower of Art.
* * *
Fate smiled. He had hit it off well. The gods would thank him for this; perhaps he could even dredge up some Favors.
* * *
"All right. And finally, Luggage, if I don't come back, I want you to kill all of them. Okay, I'm ready." Rincewind looked around to see if he'd stirred up some compassion, or maybe fear. But they didn't know him, so compassion was unlikely, and they hadn't a clue of the strength and speed of the Luggage, so fear was out of the question. As it was, they all wore looks of stony-faced sadness and contemplation; none more so than Detritus, who had pulled himself back up using the chain. Rincewind was surprised he hadn't pulled the building down instead.
"Goodbye," said Rincewind, and started up the ladder with the net launcher on his back. He cleared the roof and found himself out in the rain, clinging to a futon. He wondered how this had happened. This didn't help, so he tightened his grip and pulled himself up along a torn up section of floorboard and then past a flattened barrel. On and on, he went. Once he looked back through the driving rain, and found he could no longer see the building. The Tower of Art was simply a dim, dark shape in front and above him.
Finally, he pulled himself past the last floorboard and onto the slippery shingles of the Tower of Art. He looked ahead. Yes, there were the Quantum Weather Butterflies. He unslung the weapon off his back and set the net level on 'Fine Mesh'. Suddenly, a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.
"HELLO, RINCEWIND"
Rincewind swallowed.
"Hello, Death. Listen, I am not going to die, understand?"
"I AM NOT HERE TO TAKE YOUR LIFE, RINCEWIND. I MERELY CAME TO TELL YOU THIS: THOUSANDS HAVE DIED ALREADY. IN FACT, A TIDAL WAVE HAS WASHED OUT THROUGH THE CIRCLE SEA AND KILLED MANY ON THE SHORES OF KLATCH."
"Not-"
"NO. NOT DESERT MOTH AND CACTUS FLOWER. THEY LIVE, AND ARE UNHARMED."
"I'm glad to hear they are alive. They rather reminded me of Twoflower's daughters."
"BUT IF YOU FAIL, RINCEWIND, AND THESE CREATURES GO UNCHECKED, THEY, TOO, WILL BE LOST. ANKH-MORPORK WILL BE LOST AS WELL, AND ITS POPULATION DECIMATED. I DON'T CARE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER WHAT BECOMES OF THEM, BUT I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW. NOW I MUST GO. WORK BECKONS."
Death left.
Rincewind was frightened. More frightened than he had ever been before. For in his hands were thousands, maybe millions, of lives. He nearly panicked. But he steadied his hand. He was going to do this. Under his feet, the Tower of Art rocked as it was buffeted on all sides by waves. The water was probably eighteen feet high now, and he didn't have much time. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. A fine mesh net shot out of the end of the weapon and caught all four of the butterflies. The weights on the corners came together, and speared a piece of wreckage. And the rain stopped. Then the clouds rolled away, and the sun shown down on Lake Ankh. It would, doubtlessly, take days to drain. Rincewind shinnied back down the ladder and into the building.
"You'll receive honors for this!" Constable Visit clapped him on the back.
"Really?"
"Yes, and maybe a gift," added Shoe somewhat enviously.
"Oh, no, now something bad's going to happen."
"Why do you say dat?"
"Whenever something is going my way, Fate intervenes and I have an Adventure."
Far above Rincewind, Fate was just preparing to do this.
"No," said Blind Io, "He's suffered enough for one day. Just once, let him receive just glory."
"Yep, I'll be smitten any minute now."
"No, Rincewind, you won't," said Constable Visit. "we're going right over to Unseen U, or what parts of it are above water, and all of us will testify that you saved us all. Now let's go get the butterflies before they sink. We need proof."
At that point, both the boats containing the search party and the one carrying Lord Vetinari pulled up at the building. Carrot looked in the window.
"Oh, hello. Would any of you know which way to Psudopolis- Is that you, Constable Visit?"
"Yessir, and Constable Shoe and Sergeant Detritus. And this is Rincewind, and he saved all of us."
* * *
"Well," said Blind Io as the picture of the Discworld faded away, "That was entertaining. Who's up for Star Crossed Lovers?"
* * *
Well, that's the END. Please send ideas and reviews; they are appreciated. And I will be back;
I am the Shadow!
----------------------- [1]Toys of most of Discworld's smaller animals were often made by capturing the creature and fitting a mold around it. However, Gold was too expensive, as was Silver, and everything else that wasn't toxic or expensive only became pliable at temperatures hot enough to kill Trolls.
[2] How many of you have simply watched a contact lens float away in the swimming pool?