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Twoflower looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he opened the Luggage and pulled out a bag of gold.
'Have you seen Cohen and Bethan?' he said.
'I think they went off to get married,' said Rincewind. 'I heard Bethan say it was now or never.'
'Well, when you see them give them this,' said Twoflower, handing him the bag. 'I know it's expensive, setting up home for the first time.'
Twoflower had never fully understood the gulf in the exchange rate. The bag could quite easily set Cohen up with a small kingdom.
'I'll hand it over first chance I get,' he said, and to his own surprise realised that he meant it.
'Good. I've thought about something to give you, too.'
'Oh, there's no —'
Twoflower rummaged in the Luggage and produced a large sack. He began to fill it with clothes and money and the picture box until finally the Luggage was completely empty. The last thing he put in was his souvenir musical cigarette box with the shell-encrusted lid, carefully wrapped in soft paper.
How about “zsff”?' said Twoflower.
'Don't be silly,' said Rincewind. 'With snow runes the —'
Bethan elbowed him in the stomach and pointed.
The brown shape in the air was now a brilliant red.
The book trembled in her hands. Rincewind grabbed her around the waist, snatched Twoflower by the collar, and jumped backwards.
Bethan lost her grip on the Octavo, which tumbled towards the floor. And didn't reach it.
The air around the Octavo glowed. It rose slowly, flapping its pages like wings.
Then there was a plangent, sweet twanging noise and it seemed to explode in a complicated silent flower of light which rushed outwards, faded, and was gone.
But something was happening much further up in the sky . . .
Down in the geological depths of Great A'Tuin's huge brain new thoughts surged along neural pathways the size of arterial roads. It was impossible for a sky turtle to change its expression, but in some indefinable way its scaly, meteor-pocked face looked quite expectant.
It was staring fixedly at the eight spheres endlessly orbiting around the star, on the very beaches of space.
The spheres were cracking.
Huge segments of rock broke away and began the long spiral down to the star. The sky filled with glittering shards.
From the wreakage of one hollow shell a very small sky turtle paddled its way into the red light. It was barely bigger than an asteroid, its shell still shiny with molten yolk.
There were four small world-elephant calves on there, too. And on their backs was a discworld, tiny as yet, covered in smoke and volcanoes.
Great A'Tuin waited until all eight baby turtles had freed themselves from their shells and were treading space and looking bewildered. Then, carefully, so as not to dislodge anything, the old turtle turned and with considerable relief set out on the long swim to the blessedly cool, bottomless depths of space.
The young turtles followed, orbiting their parent.
Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc.
Then a terrible thought occurred to him.
'Where's the picture box?' he asked urgently.
'What?' said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky.
