"It isn't?"

The little man scratched his nose again. "You soon run out of ides for snowflakes, for example."

"Oh."

"You start thinking it'd be a doddle to sneak in a few identical ones."

"You do?"

"You think to yourself, ‘There's a billion trillion squillion of them, no-one's going to notice'. But that's where professionalism comes in, sort of thing."

"It does?"

"Some people" - and here the creator looked sharply at the unformed matter still streaming past - "think it's enough to install a few basic physical formulas and then take the money and run. A billion years later you got leaks all over the sky, black holes the size of your head, and when you pray up to complain there's just a girl on the counter who says she don't know where the boss is. I think people appreciate the personal touch, don't you?"

"Ah," said Rincewind. "So... when people get struck by lightning... er... it's not just because of all that stuff about electrical discharges and high points and everything... er... you actually mean it?"

"Oh, not me. I don't run the things. It's a big enough job just building ‘em, you can't expect me to operate them as well. There's a load of other universes, you know," he added, a slight note of accusation in his voice. "Got a list of jobs as long as your arm."

He reached underneath him and produced a large, leatherbound book, which he had apparently been sitting on. It opened with a creak.

Rincewind felt a tugging at his robe.

"Look," said Eric. "This isn't really... Him, is it?"

"He says it is," said Rincewind.

"What are we doing here?"

"I don't know."

The creator glared at him. "A little quiet there, please," he said.

"But listen," hissed Eric, "if he really is the creator of the world, that sandwich is a religious relic!"

"Gosh," said Rincewind weakly. He hadn't eaten for ages. He wondered what the penalty was for eating a venerated object. It was probably severe.

"You could put it in a temple somewhere and millions of people would come to look at it."

Rincewind cautiously levered up the top slice of bread.

"It's got no mayonnaise in it," he said. "Will that still count?"

The creator cleared his throat, and began to read aloud.

Astfgl surfed across the entropy slope, an angry red spark against the swirls of interspace. He was so angry now that the last vestiges of self-control were slipping away; his jaunty cap with its stylish hornlets had become a mere wisp of crimson dangling from the tip of one of the great coiled ramshorns that framed his skull.

With a rather sensuous ripping noise the red silk across his back tore open and his wings unfolded.

They are conventionally represented as leathery, but leather wouldn't survive more than a few seconds in that environment. Besides, it doesn't fold up very well.

These wings were made of magnetism and shaped space, and spread out until they were a faint curtain against the incandescent firmament and they beat as slowly as the rise of civilisations.

They still looked batlike, but that was just for the sake of tradition.

Somewhere around the 29^th millennium he was overtaken, quite without noticing, by something small and oblong and probably even angrier than he was.

Eight spells go to make up the world. Rincewind knew that well enough. He knew that the book which contained them was the Octavo, because it still existed in the library of the Unseen University - currently inside a welded iron box at the bottom of a specially-dug shaft, where its magical radiations could be kept under control.

Rincewind had wondered how it had all started. He'd imagined a sort of explosion in reverse, with interstellar gases roaring together to form Great A'Tuin, or at least a roll of thunder or something.

Instead there was a faint, musical twang, and where the Discworld hadn't been, there the Discworld was, as if it had always been hiding somewhere the whole time.

He also realised that the feeling of falling he had so recently learned to live with was one he was probably going to die with, too. As the world appeared beneath him it brought this aeon's special offer - gravity, available in a choice of strengths from your nearest massive planetary body.

He said, as so often happens on these occasions, "Aargh."

The creator, still sitting serenely in mid-air, appeared beside him as he plummeted.

"Nice clouds, don't you think? Done a good job on the clouds," he said.

"Aargh." Rincewind repeated.

"Something the matter?"

"Aargh."

"That's humans for you," said the creator. "Always rushing off somewhere." He leaned closer. "It's not up to me, of course, but I've often wondered what it is that goes through your heads."

"It's going to be my feet in a minute!" screamed Rincewind.

Eric, falling alongside him, tugged at his ankle. "That's not the way to talk to the creator of the universe!" he shouted. "Just tell him to do something, make the ground soft or something!"

"O, I dunno if I could do that," said the creator. "It's causality regulations. I'd have the Inspector down on me like a ton of, a ton of, a ton of weight," he added. "I could probably knock you up a really spongy bog. Or quicksand's very popular at the moment. I could do you a complete quicksand with marsh and swamp en suite, no problem."

"!" said Rincewind.

"You're going to have to speak up a bit, I'm sorry. Wait a moment."

There was another harmonious twanging noise.

When Rincewind opened his eyes he was standing on a beach. So was Eric. The creator floated nearby.

There was no rushing wind. He hadn't go so much as a bruise.

"I just wedged a thingy in the velocities and positions," said the creator, noticing his expression. "Now: what was it you were saying?"

"I rather wanted to stop plunging to my death," said Rincewind.

"Oh. Good. Glad that's sorted out, then." The creator looked around distractedly. "You haven't seen my book around, have you? I thought I had it in my hand when I started." He sighed. "Lose me own head next. I done a whole world once and completely left out the fingles. Not one of the buggers. Couldn't get ‘em at the time, told myself I could nip back when they were in stock, completely forgot. Imagine that. No-one spotted it, of course, because obviously they just evolved there and they didn't know there ought to be fingles, but it was definitely causing them deep, you know, psychological problems. Deep down inside they could tell there was something missing, sort of thing."

The creator pulled himself together.

"Anyway, I can't hang about all day," he said. "Like I said, I've got a lot of jobs on."

"Lots?" said Eric. "I thought there was only one."

"Oh, no. There's masses of them," said the creator, beginning to fade away. "That's quantum mechanics for you, see. You don't do it once and have done. No, they keep on branching off. Multiple choice they call it, it's like painting the - painting the - painting something very big that you have to keep on painting, sort of thing. It's all very well saying you just have to change one little detail, but which one, that's the real bugger. Well, nice to have met you. If you need any extra work, you know, an extra moon or something - "

"Hey!"

The creator reappeared, his eyebrows raised in polite surprise.

"What happens now?" said Rincewind.

"Now? Well, I imagine there'll be some gods along soon. They don't wait long to move in, you know. Like flies around a - flies around a - like flies. They tend to be a bit high-spirited to start with, but they soon settle down. I suppose they take care of all the people, ekcetra." The creator leaned forward. "I've never been good at doing people. Never seem to get the arms and legs right." He vanished.

They waited.