‘It needs an uplifting motto,’ said Carrot. ‘Wizards know about this sort of thing, don't they?’

‘How about MorituriNolumusMori, that's got the right ring,’ said Rincewind gloomily.

Carrot's lips moved as he parsed the sentence. ‘Wewhoareabouttodie…’ he said, ‘but I don't recognise the rest.’

‘It's very uplifting,’ said Rincewind. ‘It's straight from the heart.’

‘Very well. Many thanks. I'll get to work on it right away,’ said Carrot.

Rincewind sighed. ‘You're finding this exciting, aren't you?’ he said. ‘You actually are.’

‘It will certainly be a challenge to go where no one has gone before,’ said Carrot.

‘Wrong! We're going where no one has comebackfrom before.’ Rincewind hesitated. ‘Well, except me. But I didn't go that far, and I… sort of dropped on to the Disc again.’

‘Yes, they told me about it. What did you see?’

‘My whole life, passing in front of my eyes.’

‘Perhaps we shall see something more interesting.’

Rincewind glared at Carrot, bent once again over his sewing. Everything about the man was neat, in a workmanlike sort of way: he looked like someone who washed thoroughly. He also seemed to Rincewind to be a complete idiot with gristle between the ears. But complete idiots didn't make comments like that.

‘I'm taking an iconograph and lots of paint for the imp. You know the wizards want us to make all kinds of observations?’ Carrot went on. ‘They say it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’

‘You're not making any friends here, you know,’ said Rincewind.

‘Have you any idea what it is that the Silver Horde wants?’

‘Drink, treasure, and women,’ said Rincewind. ‘But I think they may have eased back on the last one.’

‘But didn't they have more or less all of that anyway?’

Rincewind nodded. That was the puzzler. The Horde had it all. They had everything that money could buy, and since there was a lot of money on the Counterweight Continent, that was everything.

It occurred to him that when you'd had everything, all that was left was nothing.

The valley was full of cool green light, reflected off the towering ice of the central mountain. It shifted and flowed like water. Into it, grumbling and asking one another to speak up, walked the Silver Horde.

Behind them, walking almost bent double with horror and dread, white-faced, like a man who has gazed upon direful things, came the minstrel. His clothes were torn. One leg of his tights had been ripped off. He was soaking wet, although parts of his clothing were singed. The twanging remains of the lute in his trembling hand had been half bitten away. Here was a man who had truly seen life, mostly on the point of departure.

‘Not very insane, as monks go,’ said Caleb. ‘More sad than mad. I've known monks that frothed.’

‘And some of those monsters were long past their date with the knackerman, and that's the truth,’ said Truckle. ‘Honestly, I felt embarrassed about killing them. They was older than us.’

‘The fish were good,’ said Cohen. ‘Real big buggers.’

‘Just as well, really, since we've run out of walrus,’ said Evil Harry.

‘Wonderful display by your henchmen, Harry,’ said Cohen. ‘Stupidity wasn't the word for it. Never seen so many people hit themselves over the head with their own swords.’

‘They were good lads,’ said Harry. ‘Morons to the end.’

Cohen grinned at Boy Willie, who was sucking a cut finger.

‘Teeth,’ he said. ‘Huh… the answer is always “teeth”, is it?’

‘All right, all right, sometimes it's “tongue”,’ said Boy Willie. He turned to the minstrel.

‘Did you get that bit where I cut up that big taranchula?’ he said.

The minstrel raised his head slowly. A lute string broke.

‘Mwwa,’ he bleated.

The rest of the Horde gathered round quickly. There was no sense in letting just one of them get the best verses.

‘Remember to sing about that bit where that fish swallowed me and I cut my way out from inside, okay?’

‘Mwwa…’

‘And did you get that bit when I killed that big six-armed dancin' statue?’

‘Mwwa…’

‘What're you talkin' about? It was me what killed that statue!’

‘Yeah? Well, I clove him clean in twain, mate. No one could have survived that!’

‘Why didn't you just cut 'is 'ead orf?’

‘Couldn't. Someone'd already done that.’

‘'Ere, 'e's not writin' this down! Why isn't 'e writin' this down? Cohen, you tell 'im 'e's got to write this down!’

‘Let him be for a while,’ said Cohen. ‘I reckon the fish disagreed with him.’

‘Don't see why,’ said Truckle. ‘I pulled him out before it'd hardly chewed him. And he must've dried out nicely in that corridor. You know, the one where the flames shot up out of the floor unexpectedly.’

‘I reckon our bard wasn't expecting flames to shoot out of the floor unexpectedly,’ said Cohen.

Truckle shrugged theatrically. ‘Well, if you're not going to expect unexpected flames, what's the point of going anywhere?’

‘And we'd have been in some strife with those gate demons from the netherworlds if Mad Hamish hadn't woken up,’ Cohen went on.

Hamish stirred in his wheelchair, under a pile of large fish fillets inexpertly wrapped in saffron robes.

‘Whut?’

‘I SAID YOU WERE GROUCHY WHAT WITH MISSING YER NAP!’ Cohen shouted.

‘Ach, right!’

Boy Willie rubbed his thigh. ‘I got to admit it, one of those monsters nearly got me,’ he said. ‘I'm going to have to give this up.’

Cohen turned around quickly. ‘And die like old Old Vincent?’ he said.

‘Well, not—’

‘Where would he have been if we weren't there to give him a proper funeral, eh? A great big bonfire, that's the funeral of a hero. And everyone else said it was a waste of a good boat! So stop talking like that and followme!’

‘Mw… mw… mw,’ the minstrel sang, and finally the words came out. ‘Mad! Mad! Mad! You're all stark staring mad!’

Caleb patted him gently on the shoulder as they turned to follow their leader.

‘We prefer the word berserk, lad,’ he said.

Some things needed testing…

‘I have watched the swamp dragons at night,’ Leonard said conversationally as Ponder Stibbons adjusted the static-firing mechanism. ‘And it is clear to me that the flame is quite useful to them as a means of propulsion. In a sense, a swamp dragon is a living rocket. A strange creature to have come into being on a world like ours, I have always thought. I suspect they come from elsewhere.’

‘They tend to explode a lot,’ said Ponder, standing back. The dragon in the steel cage watched him carefully.

‘Bad diet,’ said Leonard firmly. ‘Possibly not what they were used to. But I am sure the mixture I have devised is both nourishing and safe and will have… usable effect…’

‘But we will go and get behind the sandbags now, sir,’ said Ponder.

‘Oh, do you really think—?’

‘Yes, sir.’

With his back firmly against the sandbags, Ponder shut his eyes and pulled the string.

In front of the dragon's cage, a mirror swung down, just for a moment. And the first reaction of a male swamp dragon on seeing another male is to flame…

There was a roar. The two men peered over the barrier and saw a yellow-green lance of fire thundering out across the evening sea.

‘Thirty-three seconds!’ said Ponder, when it finally winked out. He leapt up.

The small dragon belched.

The flame was more or less gone, so it was the dampest explosion Ponder had ever experienced.

‘Ah,’ said Leonard, arising from behind the sandbags and peeling a piece of scaly skin off his head. ‘Nearly there, I think. Just a pinch more charcoal and seaweed extract to prevent blowback.’