Page 141 (1/2)

Prologue

In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was neverstar-mists waver and part…

See…

Great A’Tuin the turtle coen frost on his ponderous lie and ancient shell pocked with h sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination

In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks only of the Weight

Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great T’Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and startanned shoulders the disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven

Astropsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about

The Great Turtle was a dom of Krull, whose riantry and pulley arrange and lowered several observers over the Edge in a quartzed brass vessel to peer through the mist veils

The early astrozoologists, hauled back frole by enor back much information about the shape and nature of A’Tuin and the elephants but this did not resolve fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of the universe[1]

For example, as Atuin’s actual sex? This vital question, said the Astrozoologists with er and antry was constructed for a deep-space vessel In the meantime they could only speculate about the revealed cosmos

There was, for example, the theory that A’Tuin had come froait, into nowhere, for all ti acadeious persuasion, was that A’Tuin was crawling fro, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis

Thus it was that a young cos a new telescope hich he hoped to ht eye, was on this eventful evening the first outsider to see the s of the oldest city in the world

Later that night he becaot about it Nevertheless, he was the first There were others…

[1] The shape and cosy of the disc system are perhaps worthy of note at this point There are, of course, two major directions on the disc: Hubward and Rimward But since the disc itself revolves at the rate of once every eight hundred days (in order to distribute the weight fairly upon its supportive pachyderule of Krull) there are also two lesser directions, which are Turnwise and Widdershins Since the disc’s tiny orbiting sunlet maintains a fixed orbit while the majestic disc turns slowly beneath it, it will be readily deduced that a disc year consists of not four but eight seasons The summers are those times when the sun rises or sets at the nearest point on the Rim, the winters those occasions when it rises or sets at a point around ninety degrees along the circumference Thus, in the lands around the Circle Sea, the year begins on Hogs’ Watch Night, progresses through a Spring Prime to its first midsummer (Small Gods’ Eve) which is followed by Autu the half-year point of Crueltide, Winter Secundus (also known as the Spindlewinter, since at this time the sun rises in the direction of spin) Then co with Sum the night of Alls Fallow -the one night of the year, according to legend, itches and warlocks stay in bed Then drifting leaves and frosty nights drag on towards Backspindlewinter and a new Hogs’ Watch Night nestling like a frozen jewel at its heart

Since the Hub is never closely warmed by the weak sun the lands there are locked in perion of sunny islands and balht days in a disc week and eight colours in its light spectrunificance on the disc and must never, ever, be spoken by a wizard