Terry Pratchett - The Last Hero

‘Now! Now! Now! Mirrors… down! Good! We have flame! Now what was it… oh, yes… Everyoneholdontosomething !’

Wings unfolding, dragons flaring, the Kite rose from the splintering barge and into the storm and over the Rim of the world…

The only sound was a faint whisper of air as Rincewind and Carrot clambered off the shivering floor. Their pilot was staring out of the window.

‘Look at the birds! Oh, do look at the birds!’

In the calm sunlit air beyond the storm they swooped and turned in their thousands around the gliding ship, as small birds will mob an eagle. And it did look like an eagle, one that had just snatched a giant salmon from the Fall…

Leonard stood entranced, tears running down his cheeks.

Carrot tapped him very gently on the shoulder. ‘Sir?’

‘It's so beautiful… so beautiful…’

‘Sir, we need you to fly this thing, sir! Remember? Stage Two?’

‘Hmm?’ Then the artist shuddered, and part of him returned to his body. ‘Oh, yes, very well, very well…’ He sat down heavily in his seat. ‘Yes… to be sure… yes. We shall, er, we shall test the controls. Yes.’

He laid a trembling hand on the levers in front of him, and placed his feet on the pedals. The Kite lurched sideways on the air.

‘Oops… ah, now I think I have it… sorry… yes… oh, sorry, dear me… ah, now I think…’

Rincewind, flung against the window by another judder, looked down the face of the Rimfall.

Here and there, all the way down, mountain-sized islands projected from the wall of white water, glowing in the evening light. Little white clouds scudded between them. And everywhere there were birds, wheeling, nesting, gliding—

‘There's forests on those rocks! They're like little countries… there's people ! I can see houses !’

He was thrown back again as the Kite banked into some cloud.

‘There's people living over the Edge!’ he said.

‘Old shipwrecks, I suppose,’ said Carrot.

‘I, er, I think I have the hang of it now,’ said Leonard, staring fixedly ahead. ‘Rincewind, please be so good as to pull that lever there, will you?’

Rincewind did so. There was a clunk behind them, and the ship shook slightly as the first-stage cage was dropped.

As it tumbled slowly apart in the air, small dragons spread their wings and flapped hopefully back towards the Disc.

‘I thought there would be more than that,’ said Rincewind.

‘Oh, those are just the ones we used to help us get clear of the Rim,’ said Leonard, as the Kite turned lazily in the air. ‘Most of the others we'll use to go down.’

‘Down?’ said Rincewind.

‘Oh, yes. We need to go down, as quickly as we can. No time to waste.’

‘Down? This is not the time to talk about down ! You kept on talking about around . Around is fine! Not down !’

‘Ah, but you see, in order to go around we need to go down . Fast.’ Leonard looked reproachful. ‘I did put it in my notes—’

‘ Down is not a direction with which I am happy!’

‘Hello? Hello?’ came a voice, out of the air.

‘Captain Carrot,’ said Leonard, as Rincewind sulked in his seat, ‘oblige me by opening the cabinet there, will you?’

This revealed a fragment of smashed omniscope and the face of Ponder Stibbons.

‘It works!’ His shout sounded muffled and somehow small, like the squeaking of an ant. ‘You're alive?’

‘We have separated the first dragons and everything is going well, sir,’ said Carrot.

‘No, it's not!’ Rincewind shouted. ‘They want to go dow—!’

Without turning his head, Carrot reached around behind Leonard and pulled Rincewind's hat down over his face.

‘The second-stage dragons will be about ready to burn now,’ said Leonard. ‘We had better get on, Mr Stibbons.’

‘Please take careful observations of all—’ Ponder began, but Leonard had politely closed the case.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘if you gentlemen will undo the clips beside you and turn the large red handles you should be able to start the process of folding the wings back in. I believe that as we increase speed the impellers will make the process easier.’ He looked at Rincewind's blank face as the angry wizard freed himself from his hat. ‘We will use the rushing air as we fall to help us reduce the size of the wings, which we will not require for a while.’

‘I understand that,’ said Rincewind distantly. ‘I just hate it.’

‘The only way home is down, Rincewind,’ said Carrot, adjusting his seat belt. ‘And put your helmet on!’

‘So if everyone would once again hold tight?’ said Leonard, and pushed gently on a lever. ‘Don't look so worried, Rincewind. Think of it as a sort of… well, a magic carpet ride…’

The Kite shuddered.

And dived…

And suddenly the Rimfall was under them, stretching to an infinite misty horizon, its rocky outcrops now islands in a white wall.

The ship shook again, and the handle Rincewind had been leaning on started to move under its own power.

There was no solid surface any more. Every piece of the ship was vibrating.

He stared out of the porthole next to him. The wings, the precious wings, the things that kept you up , were folding gracefully in on themselves…

‘Rrincewwind,’ said Leonard, a blur in his seat, ‘pplease ppull the bblack lleverr!’

The wizard did so, on the basis that it couldn't make things worse.

But it did. He heard a series of thumps behind him. Five score of dragons, having recently digested a hydrocarbon-rich meal, saw their own reflections in front of them as a rack of mirrors was, for a moment, lowered in front of their cages.

They flared.

Something crashed and smashed, back in the fuselage. A giant foot pressed the crew back into their seats. The Rimfall blurred. Through red-rimmed eyes they stared at the speeding white sea and the distant stars and even Carrot joined in the hymn of terror, which goes:

‘Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhggggggg…’

Leonard was trying to shout something. With terrible effort Rincewind turned his huge and heavy head and just made out the groan: ‘Ttthe wwwhite lllever!’

It took him years to reach it. For some reason his arms had been made out of lead. Bloodless fingers with muscles weak as string managed to get a grip and tow the lever back.

Another foreboding thump rattled the ship. The pressure ceased. Three heads thumped forward.

And then there was silence. And lightness. And peace.

Dreamily, Rincewind pulled down the periscope and saw the huge fish section curving gently away from them. It came apart as it flew, and more dragons spread their wings and whirled away behind the Kite . Magnificent. A device for seeing behind you without slowing down? Just the thing no coward should be without.

‘I've got to get one of these,’ he murmured.

‘That seemed to go quite well, I thought,’ said Leonard. ‘I'm sure the little creatures will get back, too. Flitting from rock to rock… yes, I'm sure they will…’

‘Er… there's a strong draught by my seat—’ Carrot began.

‘Ah, yes… it would be a good idea to keep the helmets handy,’ Leonard said. ‘I've done my best, varnishing and laminating and so forth… but the Kite is not, alas, completely airtight. Well, here we are, well on our way,’ he added brightly. ‘Breakfast, anyone?’

‘My stomach feels very—’ Rincewind began, but stopped.

A spoon drifted past, tumbling gently.

‘What has switched off the down-ness?’ he demanded.