Chapter 23

Nick woke up coughing up sand, his chest hurt horribly, and his head throbbed like he had been stomped on by more sheep, but he was alive. He was naked, thirsty, and it looked like he was alone on a tiny island, but he was alive. Yesterday? Longer ago? Earlier today? He didn’t know how long it has been since he crouched on the frigid rocks of Tähelepanek Point, cooling his burned hands on the cold stone and looking over the edge. He was one second from standing up and joining Octavia while Gaspode and her dad pulled her back from the edge, then he saw that giant maw of hell coming up at him, slicing off a huge chunk of the discworld as it roared upwards in its anger.

He changed into something as quick as he could and the only something that he had in his mind to change into was the beast he became during the lecture to illustrate the threat to the gathered men of pseudo-science, a Pétra Trógon Vasiliás. Nick became the beast of his nightmares, a baby brother to the hell spawned beast that was coming up at him. He changed as the beast was slicing off the rocks he was standing on and he dove outward into space. Enraged, the beast turned toward him, trying to eat the interloper. In his terror, Nick did what the baby turtles were doing, and he headed toward the nebula.

Nick swam as hard as he could toward the nearest column of gas and dust, trying to figure out how to not breathe in the column of dust while he’s in the body of a beast designed to eat everything but breathe almost nothing. The answer appeared to be as simple as holding his breath, and for him it worked, the much larger beast dove straight into the nebula, roaring in anger, and soon what passed for its respiratory systems was overwhelmed with dust and it slowly drowning itself. Nick had swum around that first column of dust. In its anger to kill Nick, the planet eater swam through the column and sealed its fate.

As the planet eater’s inertia carried it into the nebula ensuring its demise, Nick struggled back to discworld, he was only partially successful at not scooping up the dust of the nebula, it’s hard to not breathe when your mouth is fixed wide open. To make matters worse, A’Tuin was turning away from the nebula, moving away from him. All the baby world turtles were hiding in the nebula now, and A’Tuin was complete with this reproductive cycle. It was time for her to go somewhere else and eat.

Nick swam through space as hard as he could and eventually, he crossed over the rimfall, the perfect and beautiful waterfall that carries the water from the circle sea over the circumference of the disc. Not only was the rimfall beautiful, but the rainbow that circled the disk, the rimbow has only been seen by a handful of people who survived to describe it later. Passing over the rim, Nick found himself over the Great Circle Sea looking for anything familiar, but he was nowhere near Krull. He spotted an island and changed from a Pétra Trógon Vasiliás to human form, unfortunately he was so exhausted that he didn’t realize how far off the ground he was, the last thing he remembered was the sand rushing up to slap him in the face.

Nick awoke hungry and thirsty, and found himself on a tiny island where there was nothing to eat or drink. The only thing on the island with him was Death. And Death was reclining in a wood and canvas beach lounger wearing black shrouds and sandals and reading the Sunday Times. “THREE TIMES LUCKY, I’M IMPRESSED,” said the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death.

Nick spit sand out of his mouth and tried to drag his aching body toward the water line to maybe rinse the sand out with salt water. He didn’t need to do that. As the sun rose, the island was disappearing under the rising tide. “I’m not a wizard, why am I seeing you?” gasped Nick.

Without looking up from his paper, Death said, “YOU ARE A WITCH, A HEALER. WE WILL BE COMPETING AGAINST EACH OTHER FOR THE LIVES OF YOUR PATIENTS.”

“I can’t be a witch, I’m a male.”

Death turned the page to the sports scores. “IT’S YOUR FATE, THAT’S NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY.”

Nick weakly spit sand out of his mouth, “Gods am I thirsty.”

“NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF A THIRSTY SHARK,” said Death as he folded up his newspaper.

“That was very nice of you, thank you,” said Nick as he dragged himself to the waterline. Why didn’t he think of that?

“LET’S CALL IT PROFESSIONAL COURTESY.” Death folded up his lounge and faded from sight as Nick slipped under the waves, dreaming of the day that he will teach his son to swim.