Light on the Discworld isn’t like light elsewhere. It’s grown up a bit, it’s been around, it doesn’t feel the need to rush everywhere. It knows that however fast it goes darkness always gets there first, so it takes it easy.
Midnight glided across the landscape like a velvet bat. And faster than midnight, a tiny spark against the dark world of the Disc, Binky pounded after it. Flames roared back from his hooves. Muscles moved under his glistening skin like snakes in oil.
They moved in silence. Ysabell took one arm from around Mort’s waist and watched sparks glitter around her fingers in all eight colours of the rainbow. Little crackling serpents of light flowed down her arm and flashed off the tips of her hair.
Mort took the horse down lower, leaving a boiling wake of cloud that extended for miles behind them.
“Now I know I’m going mad,” he muttered.
“Why?”
“I just saw an elephant down there. Whoa, boy. Look, you can see Sto Lat up ahead.”
Ysabell peered over his shoulder at the distant gleam of light.
“How long have we got?” she said nervously.
“I don’t know. A few minutes, perhaps.”
“Mort, I hadn’t asked you before—”
“Well?”
“What are you going to do when we get there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was sort of hoping something would suggest itself at the time.”
“Has it?”
“No. But it isn’t time yet. Albert’s spell may help. And I—”
The dome of reality squatted over the palace like a collapsing jellyfish. Mort’s voice trailed into horrified silence. Then Ysabell said, “Well, I think it’s nearly time. What are we going to do?”
“Hold tight!”
Binky glided through the smashed gates of the outer courtyard, slid across the cobbles in a trail of sparks and leapt through the ravaged doorway of the hall. The pearly wall of the interface loomed up and passed like a shock of cold spray.
Mort had a confused vision of Keli and Cutwell and a group of large men diving for their lives. He recognised the features of the duke and drew his sword, vaulting from the saddle as soon as the steaming horse skidded to a halt.
“Don’t you lay a finger on her!” he screamed. “I’ll have your head off!”
“This is certainly most impressive,” said the duke, drawing his own sword. “And also very foolish. I—”
He stopped. His eyes glazed over. He toppled forward. Cutwell put down the big silver candlestick he’d wielded and gave Mort an apologetic smile.
Mort turned towards the guards, the blue flame of Death’s sword humming through the air.
“Anyone else want some?” he snarled. They backed away, and then turned and ran. As they passed through the interface they vanished. There were no guests outside there, either. In the real reality the hall was dark and empty.
The four of them were left in a hemisphere that was rapidly growing smaller.
Mort sidled over to Cutwell.
“Any ideas?” he said. “I’ve got a magic spell here somewhere—”
“Forget it. If I try any magic in here now it’ll blow our heads off. This little reality is too small to contain it.”
Mort sagged against the remains of the altar. He felt empty, drained. For a moment he watched the sizzling wall of the interface drifting nearer. He’d survive it, he hoped, and so would Ysabell. Cutwell wouldn’t, but a Cutwell would. Only Keli—
“Am I going to be crowned or not?” she said icily. “I’ve got to die a queen! It’d be terrible to be dead and common!”
Mort gave her an unfocused look, trying to remember what on earth she was talking about. Ysabell fished around in the wreckage behind the altar, and came up with a rather battered gold circlet set with small diamonds.
“Is this it?” she said.
“That’s the crown,” said Keli, nearly in tears. “But there’s no priest or anything.”
Mort sighed deeply.
“Cutwell, if this is our own reality we can rearrange it the way we want, can’t we?”
“What had you in mind?”
“You’re now a priest. Name your own god.”
Cutwell curtsied, and took the crown from Ysabell.
“You’re all making fun of me!” snapped Keli.
“Sorry,” said Mort, wearily. “It’s been rather a long day.”
“I hope I can do this right,” said Cutwell solemnly. “I’ve never crowned anyone before.”
“I’ve never been crowned before!”
“Good,” said Cutwell soothingly. “We can learn together.” He started to mutter some impressive words in a strange tongue. It was in fact a simple spell for ridding the clothing of fleas, but he thought, what the hell. And then he thought, gosh, in this reality I’m the most powerful wizard there ever was, that’d be something to tell my grandch… He gritted his teeth. There’d be some rules changed in this reality, that was for sure.
Ysabell sat down beside Mort and slipped her hand in his.
“Well?” she said quietly. “This is the time. Has anything suggested itself?”
“No.”
The interface was more than halfway down the hall, slowing slightly as it relentlessly ground down the pressure of the intruding reality.
Something wet and warm blew in Mort’s ear. He reached up and touched Binky’s muzzle.
“Dear old horse,” he said. “And I’m right out of sugar lumps. You’ll have to find your way home by yourself—”
His hand stopped in mid-pat.
“We can all go home,” he said.
“I don’t think father would like that very much,” said Ysabell, but Mort ignored her.
“Cutwell!”
“Yes?”
“We’re leaving. Are you coming? You’ll still exist when the interface closes.”
“Part of me will,” said the wizard.
“That’s what I meant,” said Mort, swinging himself up on to Binky’s back.
“But speaking as the part that won’t, I’d like to join you,” said Cutwell quickly.
“I intend to stay here to die in my own kingdom,” said Keli.
“What you intend doesn’t signify,” said Mort. “I’ve come all the way across the Disc to rescue you, d’you see, and you’re going to be rescued.”
“But I’m the queen!” said Keli. Uncertainty welled up in her eyes, and she spun round to Cutwell, who lowered his candle-stick guiltily. “I heard you say the words! I am queen, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yes,” said Cutwell instantly; and then, because a wizard’s word is supposed to be harder than cast iron, added virtuously, “And totally free from infestation, too.”
“Cutwell!” snapped Mort. The wizard nodded, caught Keli around the waist and bodily hoisted her on to Binky’s back. Hoisting his skirts around his waist he clambered up behind Mort and reached down and swung Ysabell up behind him. The horse jigged across the floor, complaining about the overloading, but Mort turned him towards the broken doorway and urged him forward.
The interface followed them as they clattered down the hall and into the courtyard, rising slowly. Its pearly fog was only yards away, tightening by inches.
“Excuse me,” said Cutwell to Ysabell, raising his hat. “Igneous Cutwell, Wizard 1st Grade (UU), former Royal Recogniser and soon to be beheaded probably. Would you happen to know where we are going?”
“To my father’s country,” shouted Ysabell, above the wind of their passage.
“Have I ever met him?”
“I don’t think so. You’d have remembered.”
The top of the palace wall scraped Binky’s hooves as, muscles straining, he sought for more height. Cutwell leaned backward again, holding on to his hat.