“Come on,” said Rincewind, grabbing Twoflower’s elbow. But the tourist didn’t appear to want to move.
“Come on,” the wizard repeated.
“When it gets really dark, do you think we’ll be able to look down and see Great A’tuin the World Turtle?” asked Twoflower, staring at the rolling clouds.
“I hope not,” said Rincewind, “I really do. Now let’s go, shall we?”
Twoflower followed him reluctantly into the shack. The troll had lit a couple of lamps and was sitting comfortably in a rocking chair. He got to his feet as they entered and poured two cups of a green liquid from a tall pitcher. In the dim light he appeared to phosphoresce, in the manner of warm seas on velvety summer nights. Just to add a baroque gloss to Rincewind’s dull terror he seemed to be several inches taller, too.
Most of the furniture in the room appeared to be boxes.
“Uh. Really great place you’ve got here,” said Rincewind. “Ethnic.”
He reached for a cup and looked at the green pool shimmering inside it. It’d better be drinkable, he thought. Because I’m going to drink it. He swallowed.
It was the same stuff Twoflower had given him in the rowing boat but, at the time, his mind had ignored it because there were more pressing matters. Now it had the leisure to savour the taste.
Rincewind’s mouth twisted. He whimpered a little. One of his legs came up convulsively and caught him painfully in the chest.
Twoflower swirled his own drink thoughtfully while he considered the flavour.
“Ghlen Livid,” he said. “The fermented vul nut drink they freeze-distil in my home country. A certain smokey quality… Piquant. From the western plantations in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes? Next year’s harvest, I fancy, from the colour. May I ask how you came by it?”
(Plants on the disc, while including the categories known commonly as annuals, which were sown this year to come up later this year, rieanuals, sown this year to grow next year, and perennials, sown this year to grow until further notice, also included a few rare re-annuals which, because of an unusual four-dimensional twist in their genes, could be planted this year to come up last year. The Vul nut vine was particularly exceptional in that it could flourish as many as eight years prior to its seed actually being sown. Vul nut wine was reputed to give certain drinkers an insight into the future which was, from the nut’s point of view, the past. Strange but true.)
“All things drift into the Circumfence in time,” said the troll, gnomically, gently rocking in his chair. “My job is to recover the flotsam. Timber, of course, and ships. Barrels of wine. Bales of cloth. You.”
Light dawned inside Rincewind’s head.
“It’s a net, isn’t it? You’ve got a net right on the edge of the Sea!”
“The Circumfence,” nodded the troll. Ripples radiating across his chest.
Rincewind looked out into the phosphorescent darkness that surrounded the island, and grinned inanely.
“Of course,” he said. “Amazing! You could sink piles and attach it to reefs and - good grief! The net would have to be very strong.”
“It is,” said Tethis.
“It could be extended for a couple of miles, if you found enough rocks and things,” said the wizard.
“Ten thousands of miles. I just patrol this length.”
“That’s a third of the way around the disc!”
Tethis sloshed a little as he nodded again. While the two men helped themselves to some more of the green wine, he told them about the Circumfence, the great effort that had been made to build it, and the ancient and wise Kingdom of Krull which had constructed it several centuries before, and the seven navies that patrolled it constantly to keep it in repair and bring its salvage back to Krull, and the manner in which Krull had become a land of leisure ruled by the most learned seekers after knowledge, and the way in which they sought constantly to understand in every possible particular the wondrous complexity of the universe, and the way in which sailors marooned on the Circumfence were turned into slaves, and usually had their tongues cut out. After some interjections at this point he spoke, in a friendly way, on the futility of force, the impossibility of escaping from the island except by boat to one of the other three hundred and eighty isles that lay between the island and Krull itself, or by leaping over the Edge and the high merit of muteness in comparison to for example, death.
There was a pause. The muted night-roar of the Rimfall only served to give the silence a heavier texture.
The rocking chair started to creak again. Tethis seemed to have grown alarmingly during the monologue.
“There is nothing personal in all this,” he added. “I, too, am a slave. If you try to overpower me I shall have to kill you, of course, but I won’t take any particular pleasure in it.”
Rincewind looked at the shimmering fists that rested lightly in the troll’s lap. He suspected they could strike with all the force of a tsunami.
“I don’t think you understand,” explained Twoflower. “I am a citizen of the Golden Empire. I’m sure Krull would not wish to incur the displeasure of the Emperor.”
“How will the emperor know?” asked the troll.