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'It's not that we would mind being melted down,' said the big troll. That's how we all started, anyway. But we thought, maybe, it might mean the end of everything and that doesn't seem a very good thing.'
'It's getting bigger,' said another troll. 'Look at it now. Bigger than last night.'
Rincewind looked. It was definitely bigger than last night.
'So we thought you might have some suggestions?' said the head troll, as meekly as it is possible to sound with a voice like a granite gargle.
'You could jump over the Edge,' said Rincewind. There must be lots of places in the universe that could do with some extra rocks.'
'We've heard about that,' said the troll. 'We've met rocks that tried it. They say you float about for millions of years and then you get very hot and burn away and end up at the bottom of a big hole in the scenery. That doesn't sound very bright.'
It stood up with a noise like coal rattling down a chute, and stretched its thick, knobbly arms.
'Well, we're supposed to help you,' it said. 'Anything you want doing?'
'I was supposed to be making some soup,' said Rincewind. He waved the onions vaguely. It was probably not the most heroic or purposeful gesture ever made.
'Soup?' said the troll. 'Is that all?'
'Well, maybe some biscuits too.'
The trolls looked at one another, exposing enough mouth jewellery to buy a medium-sized city.
Eventually the biggest troll said, 'Soup it is, then.' It shrugged grittily. 'It's just that we imagined that the legend would, well, be a little more – I don't know, somehow I thought – still, I expect it doesn't matter.'
It extended a hand like a bunch of fossil bananas.
'I'm Kwartz,' it said. 'That's Krysoprase over there, and Breccia, and Jasper, and my wife Beryl – she's la bit meta-morphic, but who isn't these days? Jasper, get off his foot.'
Rincewind took the hand gingerly, bracing himself for the crunch of crushed bone. It didn't come. The troll's hand was rough and a bit lichenous around the fingernails.
'I'm sorry,' said Rincewind. 'I never really met trolls before.'
'We're a dying race,' said Kwartz sadly, as the party set off under the stars. 'Young Jasper's the only pebble in our tribe. We suffer from philosophy, you know.'
'Yes?' said Rincewind, trying to keep up. The troll band moved very quickly, but also very quietly, big round shapes moving like wraiths through the night. Only the occasional flat squeak of a night creature who hadn't heard them approaching marked their passage.
'Oh, yes. Martyrs to it. It comes to all of us in the end. One evening, they say, you start to wake up and then you think “Why bother?” and you just don't. See those boulders over there?'
Rincewind saw some huge shapes lying in the grass.
'The one on the end's my aunt. I don't know what's she's thinking about, but she hasn't moved for two hundred years.'
'Gosh, I'm sorry.'
'Oh, it's no problem with us around to look after them,' aid Kwartz. 'Not many humans around here, you see. I know it's not your fault, but you don't seem to be able to spot the difference between a thinking troll and an ordinary rock. My great-uncle was actually quarried, you know.'
'That's terrible!'
'Yes, one minute he was a troll, the next he was an ornamental fireplace.'
They paused in front of a familiar-looking cliff. The scuffed remains of a fire smouldered in the darkness.
'It looks like there's been a fight,' said Beryl.
'They're all gone!' said Rincewind. He ran to the end of the clearing. 'The horses, too! Even the Luggage!'
'One of them's leaked,' said Kwartz, kneeling down. 'That red watery stuff you have in your insides. Look.'
