The Last Continent

swathe of taffeta over his head. This sort of thing always took up a lot of Watch time, what with pickpockets and so on. He’d wait until they were in whatever bit of wasteground these things always ended up in, and drop quietly out of sight.
    He glanced down.
    These ladies were certainly into shoes in a big way. They had hundreds .
    Hundreds of shoes, all lined up, peeking out from under a heap of women’s clothing. Rincewind looked away. There was probably something morally wrong about staring at women’s clothes without women in them.
    His head turned back and looked at the shoes again. He was sure that several of them had moved—
    A bottle shattered near his head. Glass showered around him. Up above, Darleen uttered a word he’d never have expected on the lips of a lady.
    Rincewind raised his head cautiously and another bottle bounced off his hat.
    “Some hoonies having a bit of fun,” said Darleen, through gritted teeth. “There’s always some joker— oh really ?”
    “Give us a kiss, mister?” said a young man who’d leapt on to the edge of the cart, waving a beer can happily.
    Rincewind had seen some serious fighters in action, but no one had ever swung a punch like Darleen. Her eyes narrowed, her fist seemed to travel in a complete circle, it met the man’s chin about halfway round and when he disappeared from the wizard’s view he was still rising.
    “Will you look at that?” Darleen demanded, waving her hand at Rincewind. “Ripped! These evening gloves cost a fortune, the bastard!” A beer can sailed past her ear. “Didja see who threw that? Didja? I saw yer, yer mazza! I’ll stick my hand down yer throat and pull yer trousers up!”
    The crowd roared their appreciation and derision at the same time. Rincewind caught sight of watchmen’s helmets heading purposefully towards them.
    “Er…” he said.
    “Hey, that’s him! That’s Rinso the bush ranger!” someone yelled, pointing.
    “It wasn’t bushes, it was just a sheep!”
    Rincewind wondered who’d said that, and realized it was him. And there was no escape. And the watchmen were looking up at him. And there was really no escape. The street was packed. There was another fight further up the procession. There were no nearby alleyways, the fugitive’s friend. And the watchmen were fighting their way through the throng, with great difficulty. And the crowd were having the time of their lives. And the huge kangaroo beer sign gleamed overhead.
    This was it, then. Time for a Famous Last Stand.
    “What?” he said aloud. “It’s never time for a Famous Last Stand!”
    He turned to Letitia. “I should just like to thank you for trying to help me,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet some real ladies for once.”
    They looked at one another.
    “The pleasure’s all ours,” said Letitia. “Such a change to meet a real gentleman, isn’t it, girls?”
    Darleen kicked a fishnet leg at a man trying to climb on the cart, causing with a stiletto heel what bromide in your tea is reputed to take several weeks to achieve.
    “Too bloody true,” she said.
    Rincewind leapt from the cart, landed on someone’s shoulder, jumped again very briefly on to someone’s head. It worked. Provided you kept moving, it really worked. A few hands grabbed at him and one or two cans were thrown, but there were also plenty of cries of “Good on yer!” and “That’s the way!”
    At last there was an alley. He jumped down from the last obliging shoulder and changed leg gear, and then found that the best way to describe the alley was as a cul-de-sac. The worst way was as an alley with three or four watchmen in it, who’d ducked in for a smoke.
    They gave him that look of harassed policemen everywhere which said that, as an unwelcome intruder into their brief smoko, he was definitely going to be guilty of something. And then light dawned in the face of their sergeant.
    “That’s him!”
    Out in the street people started yelling and screaming. These were not the beery shouts of the carnival. People were in real pain out there. They were also pressing in so tightly that there was no way out.
    “I can explain everything,” said Rincewind, half aware of the growing noise. “Well…most things. Some things, certainly. A few things. Look, about this sheep—”
    Something brilliant passed over his head and landed on the cobbles between him and the guards.
    It looked rather like a table wearing an evening dress, and it had hundreds of little