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She looked at him in amazement.
'You see,' the tourist went on, 'you know that thing you do with seaweed?'
Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had decided she didn't like it. She looked blank.
'Eat it?'
'No, what you do is, you hang it up outside your door, and it tells you if it's going to rain.'
Another thing Bethan had learned was that there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on as it turned a corner.
'I see,' she said.
'Rincewind is like that, you see.'
'Like seaweed.'
'Yes. If there was anything at all to be frightened about, he'd be frightened. But he's not. The star is just about the only thing I've ever seen him not frightened of. If he's not worried, then take it from me, there's nothing to worry about.'
'It's not going to rain?' said Bethan.
'Well, no. Metaphorically speaking.'
'Oh.' Bethan decided not to ask what 'metaphorically' meant, in case it was something to do with seaweed.
Rincewind turned around.
'Come on,' he said. 'Not far now.'
'Where to?' said Twoflower.
'Unseen University, of course.'
'Is that wise?'
'Probably not, but I'm still going—' Rincewind paused, his face a mask of pain. He put his hand to his ears and groaned.
'Spell giving you trouble?'
'Yargh.'
'Try humming.'
Rincewind grimaced. 'I'm going to get rid of this thing,' he said thickly. 'It's going back into the book where it belongs. I want my head back!'
'But then—' Twoflower began, and stopped. They could all hear it – a distant chanting and the stamping of many feet.
'Do you think it's star people?' said Bethan.
It was. The lead marchers came around a corner a hundred yards away, behind a ragged white banner with an eight-pointed star on it.
'Not just star people,' said Twoflower. 'All kinds of people!'
The crowd swept them up in its passage. One moment they were standing in the deserted street, the next they were perforce moving with a tide of humanity that bore them onwards through the city.
Torchlight flickered easily on the damp tunnels far under the University as the heads of the eight Orders of wizardry filed onwards.
'At least it's cool down here,' said one.
