The Colour of Magic

ruled by the most learned seekers after knowledge, and the way in which they sought constantly to understand in every possible particular the wondrous complexity of the Circumfence were turned into slaves, and usually had their tongues cut out. After some interjections at this point he spoke, in a friendly way, on the futility of force, the impossibility of escaping from the island except by boat to one of the other three hundred and eighty isles that lay between the island and Krull itself, or by leaping over the Edge, and the high merit of muteness in comparison to, for example, death.
    There was a pause. The muted night-roar of the Rimfall only served to give the silence a heavier texture.
    Then the rocking chair started to creak again. Tethis seemed to have grown alarmingly during the monologue.
    “There is nothing personal in all this,” he added. “I too am a slave. If you try to overpower me I shall have to kill you, of course, but I won’t take any particular pleasure in it.”
    Rincewind looked at the shimmering fists that rested lightly in the troll’s lap. He suspected they could strike with all the force of a tsunami.
    “I don’t think you understand,” explained Twoflower. “I am a citizen of the Golden Empire. I’m sure Krull would not wish to incur the displeasure of the Emperor.”
    “How will the Emperor know?” asked the troll. “Do you think you’re the first person from the Empire who has ended up on the Circumfence?”
    “I won’t be a slave!” shouted Rincewind. “I’d—I’d jump over the Edge first!” He was amazed at the sound in his own voice.
    “Would you, though?” asked the troll. The rocking chair flicked back against the wall and one blue arm caught the wizard around the waist. A moment later the troll was striding out of the shack with Rincewind gripped carelessly in one fist.
    He did not stop until he came to the rimward edge of the island. Rincewind squealed.
    “Stop that or I really will throw you over the edge,” snapped the troll. “I’m holding you, aren’t I? Look .”
    Rincewind looked.
    In front of him was a soft black night whose mist-muted stars glowed peacefully. But his eyes turned downward, drawn by some irresistible fascination.
    It was midnight on the Disc and so, therefore, the sun was far, far below, swinging slowly under Great A’Tuin’s vast and frosty plastron. Rincewind tried a last attempt to fix his gaze on the tips of his boots, which were protruding over the rim of the rock, but the sheer drop wrenched it away.
    On either side of him two glittering curtains of water hurtled toward infinity as the sea swept around the island on its way to the long fall. A hundred yards below the wizard the largest sea salmon he had ever seen flicked itself out of the foam in a wild, jerky and ultimately hopeless leap. Then it fell back, over and over, in the golden underworld light.
    Huge shadows grew out of that light like pillars supporting the roof of the universe. Hundreds of miles below him the wizard made out the shape of something, the edge of something—
    Like those curious little pictures where the silhouette of an ornate glass suddenly becomes the outline of two faces, the scene beneath him flipped into a whole, new, terrifying perspective. Because down there was the head of an elephant as big as a reasonablysized continent. One mighty tusk cut like a mountain against the golden light, trailing a widening shadow toward the stars. The head was slightly tilted, and a huge ruby eye might almost have been a red supergiant that had managed to shine at noonday.
    Below the elephant—
    Rincewind swallowed and tried not to think—
    Below the elephant there was nothing but the distant, painful Disc of the sun. And, sweeping slowly past it, was something that for all its city-sized scales, its crater-pocks, its Junar cragginess, was indubitably a flipper.
    “Shall I let go?” suggested the troll.
    “Gnah,” said Rincewind, straining backward.
    “I have lived here on the Edge for five years and I have not had the courage,” boomed Tethis. “Nor have you, if I’m any judge.” He stepped back, allowing Rincewind to fling himself onto the ground.
    Twoflower strolled up to the Rim and peered over.
    “Fantastic,” he said. “If only I had my picture box…What else is down there? I mean, if you jumped off, what would you see?”
    Tethis sat down on an outcrop. High over the Disc the moon came out from behind a cloud, giving him the