The Light Fantastic

who have spent many years abroad sent back home for specially stoppered and sealed bottles of the stuff, which brings tears to their eyes.
    It has that kind of effect.
    There is only really one way to describe the effect the smell of Ankh-Morpork has on the visiting nose, and that is by analogy.
    Take a tartan. Sprinkle it with confetti. Light it with strobe lights.
    Now take a chameleon.
    Put the chameleon on the tartan.
    Watch it closely.
    See?
    Which explains why, when the shop finally materialized in Ankh-Morpork, Rincewind sat bolt upright and said “We’re here,” Bethan went pale and Twoflower, who had no sense of smell, said, “Really? How can you tell?”
    It had been a long afternoon. They had broken into realspace in a number of walls in a variety of cities because, according to the shopkeeper, the Disc’s magical field was playing up and upsetting everything.
    All the cities were empty of most of their citizens and belonged to roaming gangs of crazed left-ear people.
    “Where do they all come from?” said Twoflower, as they fled yet another mob.
    “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out,” said the shopkeeper. “That’s what I’ve always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.”
    “That doesn’t make sense,” said Bethan, “or if it makes sense, I don’t like it.”
    The star was bigger than the sun. There would be no night tonight. On the opposite horizon the Disc’s own sunlet was doing its best to set normally, but the general effect of all that red light was to make the city, never particularly beautiful, look like something painted by a fanatical artist after a bad time on the shoe polish.
    But it was home . Rincewind peered up and down the empty street and felt almost happy.
    At the back of his mind the Spell was kicking up a ruckus, but he ignored it. Maybe it was true that magic was getting weaker as the star got nearer, or perhaps he’d had the Spell in his head for so long he had built up some kind of psychic immunity, but he found he could resist it.
    “We’re in the docks,” he declared. “Just smell that sea air!”
    “Oh,” said Bethan, leaning against the wall, “yes.”
    “That’s ozone, that is,” said Rincewind. “That’s air with character, is that.” He breathed deeply.
    Twoflower turned to the shopkeeper.
    “Well, I hope you find your sorcerer,” he said. “Sorry we didn’t buy anything, but all my money’s in my Luggage, you see.”
    The shopkeeper pushed something into his hand.
    “A little gift,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
    He darted back into his shop, the bell jangled, the sign saying Call Again Tomorrow For Spoonfetcher’s Leeches, the Little Suckers banged forlornly against the door, and the shop faded into the brickwork as though it had never been. Twoflower reached out gingerly and touched the wall, not quite believing it.
    “What’s in the bag?” said Rincewind.
    It was a thick brown paper bag, with string handles.
    “If it sprouts legs I don’t want to know about it,” said Bethan.
    Twoflower peered inside, and pulled out the contents.
    “Is that all?” said Rincewind. “A little house with shells on?”
    “It’s very useful,” said Twoflower defensively. “You can keep cigarettes in it.”
    “And they’re what you really need, are they?” said Rincewind.
    “I’d plump for a bottle of really strong suntan oil,” said Bethan.
    “Come on,” said Rincewind, and set off down the street. The others followed.
    It occurred to Twoflower that some words of comfort were called for, a little tactful small talk to take Bethan out of herself, as he would put it, and generally cheer her up.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s just a chance that Cohen might still be alive.”
    “Oh, I expect he’s alive all right,” she said, stamping along the cobbles as if she nursed a personal grievance against each one of them. “You don’t live to be eighty-seven in his job if you go around dying all the time. But he’s not here.”
    “Nor is my Luggage,” said Twoflower. “Of course, that’s not the same thing.”
    “Do you think the star is going to hit the Disc?”
    “No,” said Twoflower confidently.
    “Why not?”
    “Because Rincewind doesn’t think so.”
    She looked at him in amazement.
    “You see,” the tourist went on, “you know that thing you do with seaweed?”
    Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had