Eric

“Hark at them,” said Lavaeolus, emerging from the gloom around the beached Ephebian ships. “It’ll be fifteen choruses of ‘The Ball of Philodelphus’^{12} next, you mark my words. Lot of idiots with their brains in their jockstraps.”

He sat down on the rock. “Bastards,” he said, with feeling.

“Do you think Elenor will be able to explain it all to her boyfriend?” said Eric.

“I imagine so,” said Lavaeolus. “They usually can.”

“She did get married. And she’s got lots of children,” said Eric.

Lavaeolus shrugged. “A moment’s wild passion,” he said. He gave Rincewind a sharp look.

“Hey, you, demon,” he said. “I’d like a quiet word, if I may.”

He led Rincewind towards the boats, pacing heavily across the damp sand as if there was a lot weighing on his mind.

“I’m going home tonight, on the tide,” he said. “No sense in hanging about here, what with the war being over and everything.”

“Good idea.”

“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s sea voyages,” said Lavaeolus. He gave the nearest boat a kick. “It’s all idiots striding around and shouting, you know? Pull this, lower that, avast the other. And I get seasick, too.”

“It’s heights with me,” said Rincewind, sympathetically.

Lavaeolus kicked the boat again, obviously wrestling with some big emotional problem.

“The thing is,” he said, wretchedly. “You wouldn’t happen to know if I get home all right, would you?”

“What?”

“It’s only a few hundred miles, it shouldn’t take too long, should it?” said Lavaeolus, radiating anxiety like a lighthouse.

“Oh.” Rincewind looked at the man’s face. Ten years, he thought. And all kinds of weird stuff with winged wossnames and sea-monsters. On the other hand, would it do him any good to know?

“You get home okay,” he said. “You’re well-known for it, in fact. There’s whole legends about you going home.”

“Phew.” Lavaeolus leaned against a hull, took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. “That’s a load off my mind, I’ll tell you. I was afraid the gods might have a grudge against me.”

Rincewind said nothing.

“They get a bit angry if you go around thinking up ideas like wooden horses and tunnels,” said Lavaeolus. “They’re traditionalists, you know. They prefer people just to hack at one another. I thought, you see, that if I could show people how to get what they wanted more easily they’d stop being so bloody stupid.”

From further along the shoreline came the sound of male voices raised in song:

“—vestal virgins, Came down from Heliodeliphilodelphiboschromenos, And when the ball was over, There were—”^{13}

“It never works,” said Rincewind.

“It’s got to be worth a try, though. Hasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.”

Lavaeolus slapped him on the back. “Cheer up,” he said. “Things can only get better.”

They walked out into the dark breakers where Lavaeolus’ ship was riding at anchor, and Rincewind watched him swim out and climb aboard. After a while the oars were shipped, or unshipped, or whatever they called it when they were stuck through the holes in the sides, and the boat moved slowly out into the bay.

A few voices floated back over the surf.

“Point the pointed end that way, sergeant.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

“And don’t shout. Did I tell you to shout? Why do you all have to shout? Now I’m going downstairs for a lie down.”

Rincewind trudged back up the beach. “The trouble is,” he said, “is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so. But he’s going to have enough to worry about.”

Behind him, Eric blew his nose.

“That was the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said.

From further along the beach the Ephebian and Tsortean armies were still in full voice around their convivial campfires.

“—the village harpy she was there—”

“Come on,” said Rincewind. “Let’s go home.”

“You know the funny thing about his name?” said Eric, as they strolled along the sand.

“No. What do you mean?”

“Lavaeolus means ‘Rinser of winds’.”

Rincewind looked at him.

“He’s my ancestor?” he said.

“Who knows?” said Eric.

“Oh. Gosh.” Rincewind thought about this. “Well, I wish I’d told him to avoid getting married. Or visiting Ankh-Morpork.”

“It probably isn’t even built yet …”

Rincewind tried snapping his fingers.

This time it worked.

Astfgl sat back. He wondered what did happen to Lavaeolus.

Gods and demons, being creatures outside of time, don’t move in it like bubbles in the stream. Everything happens at the same time for them. This should mean that they know everything that is going to happen because, in a sense, it already has. The reason they don’t is that reality is a big place with a lot of interesting things going on, and keeping track of all of them is like trying to use a very big video recorder with no freeze button or tape counter. It’s usually easier just to wait and see.

One day he’d have to go and look.