The Last Continent

By noon the track crossed another one, which was much wider. Hoofprints and wheel ruts suggested that it got a lot of traffic. Rincewind brightened up, and followed it through thickening trees, glad of the shade.

He passed another groaning windmill surrounded by a cluster of patiently waiting cattle.

There were more bushes and the land was rising into ancient, crumbling hills of orange rock. At least it gets the wind up here, he thought. Ye gods, is a drop of rain too much to ask? You can't never have any rain. Everywhere gets rained on sometimes. It has to drop out of the sky in order to get underground in the first place, doesn't it?

He stopped when he heard the sound of many hoofbeats on the track behind him.

A mob of riderless horses appeared round the bend at full gallop. As they swept past Rincewind he saw one horse out in front of the others, built on the sleekest lines he'd ever seen, a horse that moved as though it had a special arrangement with gravity. The pack divided and flowed around Rincewind as if he were a rock in a stream. Then they were just a disappearing noise in a cloud of red dust.

Snowy's nostrils flared, and the jolting increased as he speeded up.

'Oh, yes?' said Rincewind. 'Not a chance, mate. You can't play with the big boys. No worries.'

The cloud of dust had barely settled before there were more hoofbeats and a bunch of horsemen came around the curve. They galloped past without taking any notice of Rincewind, but a rider at the rear slowed down.

'You seen a mob of horses go by, mate?'

'Yes, mate. No worries, no worries, no worries.'

'A big brown colt leadin' 'em?'

'Yes, mate. No worries, no worries.'

'Old Remorse says he'll give a hundred squids to the man who catches him! No chance of that, it's canyon country ahead!'

'No worries?'

'What's that you're riding, an ironing board?'

'Er, excuse me,' Rincewind began, as the man set off in pursuit, 'but is this the right road to Bugar—?'

The dust swirled across the road.

'What happened to the well known Ecksian reputation for good-hearted friendliness, eh?' shouted Rincewind to empty air.

He heard shouts and the cracking of whips from the trees on the high slopes as he wound into the hills. At one point the wild horses burst out on to the track again, not even noticing him in their flight, and this time Snowy ambled off the track and followed the trail of broken bushes.

Rincewind had learned that hauling on the reins only had the effect of making his arms ache. The only way to stop the little horse when he didn't want to be stopped was probably to get off, run ahead, and dig a trench in front of him.

Once again the riders came up behind Rincewind and thudded past, foam streaming from the horses' mouths.

'Excuse me. Am I on the right road for—?'

And they were gone.

He caught up with them ten minutes later in a thicket of mountain ash, milling around uncertainly while their leader shouted at them.

'I say, can anyone tell me—' he ventured.

Then he saw why they had stopped. They'd run out of forwards. The ground fell away into a canyon, a few patches of grass and a handful of bushes clinging to the very nearly sheer drop.

Snowy's nostrils flared and, without even pausing, he continued down the slope.

He should have skidded, Rincewind saw. In fact he should have dropped. The slope was almost vertical. Even mountain goats would only try it roped together. Stones bounced around him and a few of the larger ones managed to hit him on the back of the neck, but Snowy trotted downwards at the same deceptive speed that he used on the flat. Rincewind settled for hanging on and screaming.

Halfway down, he saw the wild herd gallop along the canyon, skid around a rock and disappear between the cliffs.

Snowy reached the bottom in a shower of pebbles and paused for a moment.

Rincewind risked opening an eye. The little horse's nostrils flared again as it looked down the narrow canyon. It stamped a hoof uncertainly. Then it looked at the vertiginous far wall, only a few metres away.

'Oh, no,' moaned Rincewind. 'Please, no...' He tried to untangle his legs but they had met right under the horse's stomach and twisted their ankles together.

He must be able to do something to gravity, he told himself, as Snowy trotted up the cliff as though it wasn't a wall but merely a sort of vertical floor. The corks on his hat brim banged against his nose.

And ahead... above... was an overhang...

'No, please, no, please don't...'

He shut his eyes. He felt Snowy draw to a halt. and breathed a sigh of relief. He risked a look down, and the huge hooves were indeed standing on solid, flat rock.

There were no corks hanging in front of Rincewind's hat.

In dread and slowly mounting terror, he turned his eyes to what they'd always thought of as upwards.

There was solid rock above him, as well. Only it was a long way up, or down. And the corks were all hanging upwards, or downwards.