Read Online The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online

himself. I’d make them awfully ill.
    It wasn’t much of a comfort.
    “So you’re Rincewind the wizard,” said the nearest one. It sounded like someone running over gravel. “I dunno. I thought you’d be taller.”
    “Perhaps he’s eroded a bit,” said another one. “The legend is awfully old.”
    Rincewind shifted awkwardly. He was pretty certain the rock he was sitting on was changing shape, and a tiny troll—hardly any more than a pebble—was sitting companionably on his foot and watching him with extreme interest.
    “Legend?” he said. “What legend?”
    “It’s been handed down from mountain to gravel since the sunset * of time,” said the first troll. “‘When the red star lights the sky Rincewind the wizard will come looking for onions. Do not bite him. It is very important that you help him stay alive.’”
    There was a pause.
    “That’s it?” said Rincewind.
    “Yes,” said the troll. “We’ve always been puzzled about it. Most of our legends are much more exciting. It was more interesting being a rock in the old days.”
    “It was?” said Rincewind weakly.
    “Oh yes. No end of fun. Volcanoes all over the place. It really meant something, being a rock then. There was none of this sedimentary nonsense, you were igneous or nothing. Of course, that’s all gone now. People call themselves trolls today, well, sometimes they’re hardly more than slate. Chalk even. I wouldn’t give myself airs if you could use me to draw with, would you?”
    “No,” said Rincewind quickly. “Absolutely not, no. This, er, this legend thing. It said you shouldn’t bite me?”
    “That’s right!” said the little troll on his foot, “and it was me who told you where the onions were!”
    “We’re rather glad you came along,” said the first troll, which Rincewind couldn’t help noticing was the biggest one there. “We’re a bit worried about this new star. What does it mean?”
    “I don’t know,” said Rincewind. “Everyone seems to think I know about it, but I don’t—”
    “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 jewelry 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 a bit metamorphic, but who isn’t these days? Jasper, get off his foot.”
    Rincewind took the