The Colour of Magic   ::   Пратчетт Терри

“Yes?”

“If I turn around, what will I see?”

“His name is Tethis. He says he’s a sea troll. This is his boat. He rescued us,” explained Twoflower

“Will you look around now?”

“Not just at the moment, thank you. So why aren’t we going over the Edge, then?” asked Rincewind with glassy calmness.

“Because your boat hit the Circumfence,” said the voice behind him (in tones that made Rincewind imagine submarine chasms and lurking Things in coral reefs).

“The Circumfence?” he repeated.

“Yes. It runs along the edge of the world,” said the unseen troll. Above the roar of the waterfall Rincewind thought he could make out the splash of oars. He hoped they were oars.

“Ah. You mean the circumference,” said Rincewind. “The circumference makes the edge of things.”

“So does the Circumfence,” said the troll.

“He means this,” said Twoflower, pointing down Rincewind’s eyes followed the finger, dreading what they might see…

Hubwards of the boat was a rope suspended a few feet above the surface of the white water. The boat was attached to it, moored yet mobile, by a complicated arrangement of pulleys and little wooden wheels. They ran along the rope as the unseen rower propelled the craft along the very lip of the Rimfall. That explained one mystery—but what supported the rope?

Rincewind peered along its length and saw a stout wooden post sticking up out of the water a few yards ahead. As he watched the boat neared it and then passed it, the little wheels clacking neatly around it in a groove obviously cut for the purpose. Rincewind also noticed that smaller ropes hung down from the main rope at intervals of a yard or so.

He turned back to Twoflower.

“I can see what it is,” he said, “But what is it?”

Twoflower shrugged. Behind Rincewind the sea troll said, “Up ahead is my house. We will talk more when we are there. Now I must row.”

Rincewind found that looking ahead meant that he would have to turn and find out what a sea troll actually looked like, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that yet. He looked at the Rimbow instead. It hung in the mists a few lengths beyond the edge of the world, appearing only at morning and evening when the light of the Disc’s little orbiting sun shone past the massive bulk of Great A’tuin the World Turtle and struck the Disc’s magical field at exactly the right angle.

A double rainbow corruscated into being.