*

The luggage came ashore somewhere about a dozen miles Rimwards of Bes Pelargic, and continued the mission on foot.

*

Rincewind stepped outside. The sun wasn't over the Rim yet, and it was chilly. Marines got up two hours before sunrise. The Orange agents were lined up in front of him and Ptroleus, who was holding a pole with a lantern on the end.

"This," he said, "Will be your target. You will get up in the air and shoot at it." He handed it to Rincewind, who dropped it and used all his self- control not to jump up and down on it.

"Why don't you go stick that in the ground over there," said Ptroleus, looking at Rincewind uneasily. He did so.

*

Uyidako awoke. She was sleeping on her palette in her shack. Switch' off was silent, and if it hadn't been for the six by three deep craters in the ground and the scorched vegetation, you would hardly know there was a war on. No that it mattered. They were going to have one last really good battle, and after that one side was doomed to inevitable defeat. She'd seen the charts on the marines; she'd heard talk among the villagers. She was not going to be the first free leader of this country and then lose it. Her sister had dreamed of reunification; she dreamed of freedom. And they had given their lives for the same cause.

That wasn't uncommon; troops on opposing armies often gave their lives for the same cause, too.

*

Author's note: If you have a map of the Discworld, please take it out and examine it.

On the Rimwards side of the Counterweight Continent is the largest region of land that on that side of the continent not under Agatean control. This is due to the fact that One Sun Mirror was somewhat short of stone when he built the Great Wall.

Damn.

This area is Pseudoagatea. For centuries, the Agatean empire scoffed at it and sent the exiled there.

But then, the Pseudopolites discovered huge deposits of tin, lead, and magnesium. They also discovered vast flat tracts of desert. They hired powerful wizards and turned the place into a swamp by magic. This isn't hard. Getting rid of a swamp is hard.

And they planted rice, and basically enslaved the Agatean exiles, who were really pissed.

They overthrew the Pseudo-government and tried to put together a decent country. It didn't work. There were some who had been milking that government, and went fawning to the Agatean empire.

Help us, and we'll do business together. The Agateans agreed. Those became the Widdershins Pseudoagateans.

On the other half, Nationalism was strong. They wanted a free trade system with the outside world. No sale.

That was ten years ago. This had to end now.

*

Havelock Vetinari knew this. He read the papers, and occasionally had their offices burned to the ground. But only if necessary. Generally, he liked them. He likes the Crossword puzzles the best.

Today he wasn't doing Crossword puzzles. Today he was reading the line- head, which read

Extra! Extra! Band of Morpork Wizards caught trying to sneak into Widdershins Pseudoagatea! War with A - M Imminent!

He put down his paper. This was going to be a bad day; there was no clean way out of this. He was going to have to use The Firecracker.

Leonard of Quirm had designed The Firecracker about a month before he disappeared. Vetinari had had one look at the plans and had seen that they were so vital to national security that he had better leave them in plain sight lest he arouse suspicion among the spies he knew to be in the building.

The most powerful explosive on the Disc was Thunder Clay. This was uncontested. But is had been concluded by Ponder Stibbons that every pound of fissionable Octiron was as powerful as a ton of the clay. Quirm had read this in Alchemy News (Motto: 'The Weekly Newsmagazine of Explosions') and designed a bomb in which such an explosion was possible. It consisted of shells of Octiron being smashed together at high speeds by Thunder Clay.

He had called it The Firecracker. Ponder Stibbons had called it The Thaumic Bomb.

Vetinari had had it built and then left in the entryway of the palace, where the passers by concluded it was some sort of statue.

Vetinari was going to use it to kill the wizards. He didn't particularly like them, and they could probably stop anything else.

They were a threat to national security. That was that. In eighteen hours they would be dead.