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There hadn't been any doubt about Arthur passing He'd been given extra tuition and was allowed to use really coraduate work

They waited until the gongs of the city struck two Clock as not a precise technology in Ankh-Morpork, and many of the city's variuos communities had their own ideas of what constituted an hour in any case, so the chi around the rooftops for five minutes

When it was obvious that the city's consensus was in favour of it being well past two the three of the silently at their shoes

'Well, that's it,' said Chidder

'Poor old Cheesewright,' said Arthur 'It's tragic, when you think about it'

'Yes, he owed ed soot out of bed and clapped his hands over his ears to shut out the roar of the sea It was strong tonight

It was always louder when he was feeling out of sorts He needed so to distract himself He could send for Ptraci, his favourite hand always cheered hihter when she stopped

Or there was the sunrise That was always co It was pleasant to sit wrapped in a blanket on the top the olden flood poured over the land You got that war of another job well done Even if you didn't actually kno you'd done it

He got up, shuffled on his slippers, and padded out of his bedrooe spiral stairs and the roof A few rushlights illu the walls with shifting shadow pictures of things dog-headed, fish-bodied, spider-arhtmares would have been quite formless without them

The sea He'd only seen it once, when he was a boy He couldn't recall a lot about it, except the size And the noise And the seagulls

They'd preyed on his ulls He wished he could come back as one, one day, but of course that wasn't an option if you were a pharaoh You never cao away, in fact

'Well, what is it?' said Teppic

'Try it,' said Chidder, 'just try it You'll never have the chance again'

'See down at the delicate pattern on his plate 'What are all the little red things?'

'They're just radishes,' said Chidder dismissively 'They're not the important part Go on'

Teppic reached over with the little wooden fork and skewered a paper-thin sliver of white fish The squishi chef was scrutinising hi a toddler on his first birthday So, he realised, was the rest of the restaurant

He chewed it carefully It was salty and faintly rubbery, with a hint of sewage outfall

'Nice?' said Chidder anxiously Several nearby diners started to clap

'Different,' Teppic conceded, chewing 'What is it?'

'Deep sea blowfish,' said Chidder

'It's all right,' he said hastily as Teppic laid down his fork fully, 'it's perfectly safe provided every bit of stoestive tract is re as a second-best blowfish chef, it's the most expensive food in the world, people write poems about it-'

'Could be a taste explosion,' rip on himself Still, it must have been done properly, otherwise the place would noearing him as wallpaper He poked carefully at the sliced roots which occupied the rest of the plate

'What do these do to you?' he said

'Well, unless they're prepared in exactly the right way over a six-week period they react catastrophically with your stoht we should celebrate with the most expensive meal we could afford'

'I see Fish and chips for Men,' said Teppic

'Do they have any vinegar in this place?' said Arthur, his o down a treat'

But the as good Not incredibly good, though Not one of the great vintages But it did explain why Teppic had gone through the whole of the day with a headache

It had been the hangunder His friend had bought four bottles of otherwise quite ordinary white wine The reason it was so expensive was that the grapes it was ht et anywhere Why bother? At lightspeed, everywhere is the saolden disc float over the edge of the world A flight of cranes took off from the mist-covered river

He'd been conscientious, he told himself No-one had ever explained to him how one ro could they? He was the god, after all He should know But he didn't, so he'd just gone through life hoping like hell that it would all work properly, and that seeh, that if it didn't work, he wouldn't knohy not A recurrent night, only it wouldn't be aand an angry crowdin the star-lit darkness outside and everyone looking expectantly at him

And all he'd be able to say was, 'Sorry'

It terrified hi on the river, the eternal frost ri off the leaves (which would s lifeless from the sky

Shadoept over hirey and e open in horror

He stood up, flinging aside the blanket, and raised both hands in supplication But the sun had gone He was the god, this was his job, it was the only thing he was here to do, and he had failed the people