Page 89 (1/2)

The 9,000 Year

Prologue

The flotillas of the dead sailed around the world on underwater rivers Very nearly nobody knew about them But the theory is easy to understand It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects only a wetter foro and lighter the higher you fly As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks, therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the storms but far above the ocean floor It's cal; soing or lashed to the wheel But the voyages still continue, aiht, because there are currents under the ocean and so the dead ships with their skeleton crews sail on around the world, over sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworrate

Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud of silt One nearly hit Angha the ships drift by, far overhead He re to happen for nine thousand years

The One Month Prologue There was thisdisease that the clacksot It was like the illness known as 'calenture' that sailors experienced when, having been becalmed for weeks under a pitiless sun, they suddenly believed that the ship was surrounded by green fields and stepped overboard Soht they could fly There was about eightsemaphore towers and when you were at the top you were maybe a hundred and fifty feet above the plains Work up there too long without a hat on, they said, and the tower you were on got taller and the nearest tower got closer and ht you could jues sleeting between thee Perhaps, as so more than a disturbance in the brain caused by the wind in the rigging No one knew for sure People who step on to the air one hundred and fifty feet above the ground seldoently in the wind, but that was okay There were lots of new designs in this tower

It stored the wind to power its mechanisms, it bent rather than broke, it acted more like a tree than a fortress You could build round and raise it into place in an hour It was a thing of grace and beauty And it could send es up to four times faster than the old towers, thanks to the new shutter systehts At least, it would once they had sorted out a few lingering problems

The young man climbed swiftly to the very top of the tower Forht, thebelow him, all the way to the horizon, like a sea He paid the view no attention He'd never dreas work better than they'd ever done before Right now, he wanted to find out as ain He oiled the sliders, checked the tension on the wires, and then swung himself out over fresh air to check the shutters themselves It wasn't what you were supposed to do, but every liness done Anyway, it was perfectly safe if you— There was a clink He looked back and saw the snaphook of his safety rope lying on the ay, saw the shadow, felt the terrible pain in his fingers, heard the scream and droppedlike an anchor

Chapter One

The Angel In which our Hero experiences Hope, the Greatest Gift - The Bacon Sandwich of Regret- Soels, conversations about — Inadvisability of Misplaced Offers regarding Broomsticks - An Unexpected Ride - A World Free of Honest Men - A Man on the Hop - There is Always a Choice They say that the prospect of being hanged in theconcentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the ed had been na if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the na under it To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Albert Spangler And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his , andall the cru mortar from around a stone in his cell ith a spoon So far the work had taken hi like a nail file Fortunately, no one ever ca here, or else they would have discovered the world's heaviest e and heavy stone that was currently the object of his attentions, and at soe staple had been ham the wall, gripped the iron ring in both hands, braced his legs against the stones on either side, and heaved His shoulders caught fire and a red mist filled his vision but the block slid out, with a faint and inappropriate tinkling noise Moist ed to ease it away from the hole and peered inside At the far end was another block, and theand fresh Just in front of it was a new spoon It was shiny As he studied it, he heard the clapping behind hiony, and saw several of the warders watching hiler!' said one of them 'Ron here owes me five dollars! I told him you were a sticker! He's a sticker, I said!'

'You set this up, did you, Mr Wilkinson?' said Moist weakly, watching the glint of light on the spoon 'Oh, not us, sir Lord Vetinari's orders He insists that all condemned prisoners should be offered the prospect of freedom'

'Freedoh there!'

'Yes, there is that, sir, yes, there is that,' said the warder 'It's only the prospect, you see Not actual free freedom as such Hah, that'd be a bit daft, eh?'

'I suppose so, yes,' said Moist He didn't say 'you bastards' The warders had treated hietting on with people He was very, very good at it People skills were part of his stock-in-trade; they were nearly the whole of it

Besides, these people had big sticks So, speaking carefully, he added: 'Soht consider this cruel, Mr Wilkinson'

'Yes, sir, we asked him about that, sir, but he said no, it wasn't He said it provided—' his forehead wrinkled '—occ-you-pay-shun-all ther-rap-py, healthy exercise, prevented reatest of all treasures which is Hope, sir'