The Light Fantastic

sunlight, which as has already been indicated travels very slowly through the Disc’s powerful magical field, sloshed gently over the lands around the Rim and began its soft, silent battle against the retreating armies of the night. It poured like molten gold * across the sleeping landscape—bright, clean and, above all, slow.

    Herrena didn’t hesitate. With great presence of mind she ran to the edge of Old Grandad’s bottom lip and jumped, rolling as she hit the earth. The men followed her, cursing as they landed among the debris.
    Like a fat man trying to do push-ups the old troll pushed himself upward.
    This wasn’t apparent from where the prisoners were lying. All they knew was that the floor kept rolling under them and that there was a lot of noise going on, most of it unpleasant.
    Weems grabbed Gancia’s arm.
    “It’s a herthquake,” he said. “Let’s get out of here!”
    “Not without that gold,” said Gancia.
    “What?”
    “The gold, the gold. Man, we could be as rich as Creosote!”
    Weems might have had a room-temperature IQ, but he knew idiocy when he saw it. Gancia’s eyes gleamed more than gold, and he appeared to be staring at Weems’s left ear.
    Weems looked desperately at the Luggage. It was still open invitingly, which was odd—you’d have thought all this shaking would have slammed the lid shut.
    “We’d never carry it,” he suggested. “It’s too heavy,” he added.
    “We’ll damn well carry some of it!” shouted Gancia, and leapt toward the chest as the floor shook again.
    The lid snapped shut. Gancia vanished.
    And just in case Weems thought it was accidental the Luggage’s lid snapped open again, just for a second, and a large tongue as red as mahogany licked across broad teeth as white as sycamore. Then it slammed shut again.
    To Weems’s further horror hundreds of little legs extruded from the underside of the box. It rose very deliberately and, carefully arranging its feet, shuffled around to face him. There was a particularly malevolent look about its keyhole, the sort of look that says “Go on—make my day…”
    He backed away and looked imploringly at Twoflower.
    “I think it might be a good idea if you untied us,” suggested Twoflower. “It’s really quite friendly once it gets to know you.”
    Licking his lips nervously, Weems drew his knife. The Luggage gave a warning creak.
    He slashed through their bonds and stood back quickly.
    “Thank you,” said Twoflower.
    “I think my back’sh gone again,” complained Cohen, as Bethan helped him to his feet.
    “What do we do with this man?” said Bethan.
    “We take hish knife and tell him to bugger off,” said Cohen. “Right?”
    “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” said Weems, and bolted toward the cavemouth. For a moment he was outlined against the gray predawn sky, and then he vanished. There was a distant cry of “aaargh.”

    The sunlight roared silently across the land like surf. Here and there, where the magic field was slightly weaker, tongues of morning raced ahead of the day, leaving isolated islands of night that contracted and vanished as the bright ocean flowed onward.
    The uplands around the Vortex Plains stood out ahead of the advancing tide like a great gray ship.

    It is possible to stab a troll, but the technique takes practice and no one ever gets a chance to practice more than once. Herrena’s men saw the trolls loom out of the darkness like very solid ghosts. Blades shattered as they hit silica skins, there were one or two brief, flat screams, and then nothing more but shouts far away in the forest as they put as much distance as they could between themselves and the avenging earth.
    Rincewind crept out from behind a tree and looked around. He was alone, but the bushes behind him rustled as the trolls lumbered after the gang.
    He looked up.
    High above him two great crystalline eyes focused in hatred of everything soft and squelchy and, above all, warm. Rincewind cowered in horror as a hand the size of a house rose, curled into a fist, and dropped toward him.
    Day came with a silent explosion of light. For a moment the huge terrifying bulk of Old Grandad was a breakwater of shadow as the daylight streamed past. There was a brief grinding noise.
    There was silence.
    Several minutes passed. Nothing happened.
    A few birds started singing. A bumblebee buzzed over the boulder that was Old Grandad’s fist and alighted on a patch of thyme that had grown under a stone fingernail.
    There