Guido Reni St Joseph

What about it?’
‘I’ve seen it before. It’s in the book I found. There’s dozens of pictures of it, and they must have thought it was very important to keep it behind the gate. That’s what the pictograms say, I think. Gate . . . man. The man behind one who had been complaining about the eating ban. ‘They look stringy.’
‘I tell you before,’ said Rock menacingly, ‘no eating people. It cause no end of trouble.’
‘Why not just one leg? Then everyone’ll be‑‘
Rock picked up a half‑ton slab in one hand, weighed it thoughtfully, and then hit the other the gate. The prisoner. You see, I’m sure the reason why all the priests or whoever they were had to go and chant there every day was‑‘A slab by his head was pulled aside and weak daylight poured through. It was very closely followed by Laddie, who tried to lick Victor’s face and bark at the same time.‘Yes, yes! Well done, Laddie,’ said Victor, trying to fight him off. ‘Good dog. Good boy, Laddie.’‘Good boy Laddie! Good boy Laddie!’The bark brought several small shards of stone down from the ceiling.‘Aha!’ said Rock. Several other troll heads appeared behind him as Victor and Ginger stared out of the hole.‘They not little children,’ muttered the

Paul Cezanne The Hanged Man's House

footage. The handleman was feeling very gratified; Mr Dibbler had never shown the slightest interest in the actual techniques of film handling before now. This may have explained why he was a little freer than usual with Guild secrets that had been handed down sideways from one generation to the same generation.
‘Why are all the little pictures alike?’ said Dibbler, as the handleman wound the film on to its spool. ‘Seems to me that’s . They see a lot of them at once, see what I mean?’
‘Hey, I got lost at see there.’
‘Every picture adds to the general effect. People don’t see, sorry, any one picture, they just see the effect caused by a lot of them moving past very quickly.’wasting money.’‘They’re not really alike,’ said Gaffer. ‘Each one’s a bit different, see? And so people’s eyes see a lot of little slightly different pictures very fast and their eyes think they’re watching something move.’Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth. ‘You mean it’s all a trick?’ he said, astonished.‘Yeah, that’s right.’ The handleman chuckled and reached for the paste pot.Dibbler watched in fascination.‘I thought it was all a special kind of magic,’ he said, a shade disappointed. ‘Now you tell me it’s just a big Find‑the­-Lady game?’‘Sort of. You see, people don’t actually see any one picture

Paul Gauguin Mahana No Atua

foolishly at her. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘You’re doing what you’ve always wanted to do.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I didn’t even know about moving pictures a couple of months ago. There weren’t any.’
They strolled aimlessly towards the town.
‘What did you want to be?’ he ventured.
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to be a milkmaid.’
There had where I come from.’
‘Why?’ said Victor.
‘I suppose it saves having to worry about what to do on Saturday nights.’
‘Oh.’
‘Didn’t you want to be anything?’ said Ginger, putting a whole sentence-worth of disdain in a been milkmaids at home. Victor tried to recollect anything about them. ‘It always looked quite an interesting job to me, milkmaiding,’ he said vaguely. ‘Buttercups, you know. And fresh air.’ ‘It’s cold and wet and just as you’ve finished the bloody cow kicks the bucket over. Don’t tell me about milking. Or being a shepherdess. Or a goosegirl. I really hated our farm.’ ‘Oh.’ ‘And they expected me to marry my cousin when I was fifteen.’ ‘Is that allowed?’ ‘Oh, yes. Everyone marries their cousins

Pablo Picasso Accordionist

something. ‘I don’t actually remember any elephants,’ he said, as if it was his own fault. ‘I was there the whole afternoon we made it, and I don’t recall a thousand elephants at any point. I’m sure I would have noticed.’
Dibbler stared. He didn’t know where they were coming from, but now he was putting his mind to it he was getting some very clear ideas about what you needed to put in movies. A thousand elephants was a good start.
‘No elephants?’ he said.
‘I don’t in case she falls off?’
‘I hope they’d be watching Pelias’ speech,’ said Silverfish testily. ‘We had to put it on five cards. In small writing.’
Dibbler sighed.
‘I think I know what people want,’ he said, ‘and they don’t want to read lots of small writing. They want spectacles!’ think so.’ ‘Well, are there any dancing girls?’ ‘Um, no.’ ‘Well, are there any wild chases and people hanging by their fingertips from the edge of a cliff?’ Silverfish brightened up slightly. ‘I think there’s a balcony at one point,’ he said. ‘Yes? Does anyone hang on it by their fingertips?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said Silverfish. ‘I believe Melisande leans over it.’ ‘Yes, but will the audience hold their breath

Abstract Autumn by Dougall

unreal.
Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess, say, weight. Some people are more real than others, for example. miles. It wasn’t very high, but lay amongst the dunes like an upturned boat or a very unlucky whale, and was covered in scrub trees. No rain fell here, if it could possibly avoid it. Although the wind sculpted the dunes around it, the low summit of the hill remained in an everlasting, ringing calm.
Nothing but the sand had changed here in hundreds of years. It has been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on any given planet, which is why they keep unexpectedly running into one another all the time. The Discworld is as unreal as it is possible to be while still being just real enough to exist. And just real enough to be in real trouble. About thirty miles Turnwise of Ankh-Morpork the surf boomed on the wind-blown, seagrass-waving, sand-dunecovered spit of land where the Circle Sea met the Rim Ocean. The hill itself was visible for

Frederic Remington The Cowboy

wishes from your great-great-great-great uncle, although I don't suppose you remember me. Coming up.
Other ancestors were climbing on past Teppic as he rose from hand to hand. Ancient fingers with a grip like steel clutched again, you said. Now come on!'
Teppic scrambled to the top of the pyramid, supported by the last two ancestors. One of them was his father.
'I don't think you've met your great-grandma,' he said, indicating the shorter bandaged figure, who nodded gently at Teppic. He opened his mouth.at him, hoisting him onwards. The pyramid grew narrower. Down below, Ptaclusp watched thoughtfully. 'What a workforce,' he said. 'I mean, the ones at the bottom are supporting the whole weight!' 'Dad,' said IIb. 'I think we'd better run. Those gods are getting closer.' 'Do you think we could employ them?' said Ptaclusp, ignoring him. 'They're dead, they probably won't want high wages, and-' 'Dad!' 'Sort of self-build-' 'You said no more pyramids, dad. Never

Mary Cassatt Young Mother Sewing

street, turned his face to the sky and hissed. 'Tell me what you can see!'
Gern squinted.
'I can see the stars, master,' he said.
'What are they on, boy?'
Gern relaxed slightly. 'That's easy, master. Everyone knows the stars are on the body of the goddess Nept who arches She was enormous, her statistics interstellar. The shadow between her galactic breasts was a dark nebula, the curve of her stomach a vast wash of glowing gas, her navel the seething, dark incandescence in which new stars were being born. She wasn't supporting the sky. She was the sky.
Her huge sad face, upside down on the turnwise horizon, stared directly herself from . . . oh, bloody hell.' 'You can see her, too?' 'Oh, mummy,' whispered Gern, and slid to his knees. Dil nodded. He was a religious man. It was a great comfort knowing that the gods were there. It was knowing they were here that was the terrible part. Because the body of a woman arched over the heavens, faintly blue, faintly shadowy in the light of the watery stars.

Salvador Dali Bacchanale

They looked in gloomy silence at the waxen visage of the pharaoh. So did the pharaoh.
'Nothing wrong with my chin.'
'You could put a beard on it,' said Dil eventually. 'It'd cover a lot of it, would a beard.'
they'll notice. But they won't say anything. They expect us to, er, improve matters.'
'After all,' said the chief sculptor cheerfully, 'you don't think they're going to step up and say "It's all wrong, he really had a face like a short-sighted chicken", do you?'
'Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, I must say.' The pharaoh went and sat by the cat. It seemed that people only had respect for the dead when they thought the dead were listening.
'I suppose,' said the apprentice, with some uncertainty, 'he did look a bit ugly compared to the frescoes.'
'That's the point, isn't it,' said Dil meaningfully. Gern's big honest spotty face changed slowly,'There's still the nose.' 'You could take half an inch off that. And do something with the cheekbones.' 'Yes.' 'Yes.' Gern was horrified. 'That's the face of our late king you're talking about,' he said. 'You can't do that sort of thing! Anyway, people would notice.' He hesitated. 'Wouldn't they?' The two craftsmen eyed one another. 'Gern,' said Dil patiently, 'certainly

Jack Vettriano The Singing Butler

They said you had one chance in two unless you drew old Mericet as examiner, in which case you might as well cut your throat right at the start.
Teppic had Mericet for Strategy and Poison Theory every Thursday afternoon, and didn't get along with him. The dormitories buzzed with rumours about Mericet, the number of kills, the astonishing technique . . . He'd broken all the records in his time. They said he'd even killed the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Not the present one, that is. One of the dead ones.
Maybe it would this mathematician's particular species, what he was eating for his supper was his lunch.

Gongs around the Ankh-Morpork sprawl were announcing midnight when Teppic crept along the ornate parapet four storeys above Filigree Street, his heart pounding.be Nivor, who was fat and jolly and liked his food and did Traps and Deadfalls on Tuesdays. Teppic was good at traps, and got on well with the master. Or it could be the Kompt de Yoyo, who did Modern Languages and Music. Teppic was gifted at neither, but the Kompt was a keen edificeer and liked boys who shared his love of dangling by one hand high above the city streets. He stuck one leg over the sill and unhitched his line and grapnel. He hooked the gutter two floors up and slipped out of the window. No assassin ever used the stairs. In order to establish continuity with later events, this may be the time to point out that the greatest mathematician in the history of the Discworld was lying down and peacefully eating his supper. It is interesting to note that, owing to

Apple Tree with Red Fruit

The dwarf watched them for a few seconds from the wings, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he scuttled back to the guardroom where the rest of the cast were still in the last hasty stages of dressing. He uttered the stage manager's traditional scream of rage.
'C'mon,' he ordered. 'Soldiers of the king, at the double! And the witches – where are the blasted witches?'
Three any gods that might be watching.
It was already going wrong. The earlier rehearsals had their little teething troubles, it was true, but Hwel had known one or two monumental horrors in his time and this one was shaping up to be the worst. The company was more jittery than a potful of lobsters. Out of the corner of his ear he heard the on-stage dialogue falter, and scurried to the wings.junior apprentices presented themselves.'I've lost my wart!''The cauldron's all full of yuk!''There's something living in this wig!''Calm down, calm down,' screamed Hwel. 'It'll all be all right on the night!''This is the night, Hwel!'Hwel snatched a handful of putty from the makeup table and slammed on a wart like an orange. The offending straw wig was rammed on its owner's head, livestock and all. and the cauldron was very briefly inspected and pronounced full of just the right sort of yuk, nothing wrong with yuk like that.On stage a guard dropped his shield, bent down to pick it up, and dropped his spear. Hwel rolled his eyes and offered up a silent prayer to

Edward Hopper Portrait of Orleans

they were its legs. A sad, rubbery face turned towards the speaker, its expression as melancholy as the mists of evolution. Its funny lips curled back. There was abolutely nothing funny about its teeth.
'Er,' said the barman again, his voice frightening even him in that terrible simian silence. 'I don't think you meant soon get talked about. But years of wielding a pen instead of a hammer had relieved Hwel's punches of some of their stopping power, and it could have been the end of him when the big man yelled and drew his sword if a pair of delicate, leathery hands hadn't instantly jerked the thing from his grip and, with only a small amount of effort, bent it
When the giant growled, and turned around, an arm like a couple of broom handles that, did you? Not about monkeys, eh? You didn't really, did you?''What the hell's that?' hissed Tomjon.'I think it's an orang-utan,' said Hwel. 'An ape.''A monkey's a monkey,' said the bearded man, at which several of the Drum's more percipient customers started to edge for the door. 'I mean, so what? But these bloody lawn ornaments—'Hwel's fist struck out at groin height.Dwarfs have a reputation as fearsome fighters. Any race of three-foot tall people who favour axes and go into battle as into a championship tree-felling competition

Pablo Picasso Studio with Plaster Head

There was a cat sitting in the doorway, subjecting him to a slow blink. It was a mottled grey and extremely fat . . .
No. It was extremely big. It was covered with so much scar tissue that it looked like a fist with fur on it. Its ears were a couple of perforated stubs, its eyes two yellow slits of easygoing malevolence, its tail a twitching series of question marks as it stared at him.
Greebo had resembled the very rodents they lived on. This cat, on the other hand, was its own animal. All cats give that impression, of course, but instead of the mindless animal self-absorption that passes for secret wisdom in the creatures. Greebo radiated genuine intelligence. He also radiated a smell that would have knocked over a wall and caused sinus trouble in a dead fox.
Only one type of person kept a cat like this.heard that Lady Felmet had a small white female cat and had strolled up to pay his respects.Verence had never seen an animal with so much built-in villainy. He didn't resist as it waddled across the floor and tried to rub itself against his legs, purring like a waterfall.'Well, well,' said the king, vaguely. He reached down and made an effort to scratch it behind the two ragged bits on top of its head. It was a relief to find someone else besides another ghost who could see him, and Greebo, he couldn't help feeling, was a distinctly unusual cat. Most of the castle cats were either pampered pets or flat-eared kitchen and stable habitue's who generally

Claude Monet Water Lilies

large city on his cheeks; his nose could have hidden successfully in a bowl of strawberries. He wore a ragged jerkin and holey tights with an aplomb that nearly convinced you that his velvet-and-vermine robes were in the wash just at the moment. In one hand he held a towel, with which he had clearly been removing the make-up that still greased his features.
'I know you,' said Granny. 'You done the murder.' She looked sideways at Magrat, and admitted, grudgingly, . One of his legs, meanwhile, had wandered off behind him. The rest of his body sagged politely until his head was level with Granny's knees.
'Yes, well,' said Granny. She felt that her clothes had grown a bit larger and much hotter.
'I thought you was very good, too,' said Nanny Ogg. 'The way you shouted all them words so graciously. I could tell you was a king.''Leastways, it looked like it.''So glad. It is always a pleasure to meet a true connoisseur. Olwyn Vitoller, at your service. Manager of this band of vagabonds,' said the man and, removing his moth-eaten hat, he treated her to a low bow. It was less an obeisance than an exercise in advanced topology.The hat swerved and jerked through a series of complex arcs, ending up at the end of an arm which was now pointing in the direction of the sky
'I hope we didn't upset things,' said Magrat.

Vincent van Gogh Still life with a bottle of lemons and oranges

room opened out into a series of passages, each one lined with the hourglasses. Here and there the shelves were divided by stone pillars inscribed with angular markings. Albert glanced at them occasionally; mainly he strode m-dimensional topography?'
'Um. No.'
Then I shouldn't aspire to hold any opinions, if I was you,' said Albert.
He paused in front of a shelf of glasses, glanced at the paper again, ran his hand along the row and suddenly snatched up a glass. The top bulb was almost empty.
'Hold this,' he said. 'If this is right, then the other should be somewhere near. Ah. Here.'through the maze of sand as though he knew every turn by heart.'Is there one glass for everyone, Albert?''Yes.''This place doesn't look big enough.''Do you know anything about

Amedeo Modigliani Caryatid 1

As one man, the assembled company stopped talking and stared at him with the honest rural stare that suggests that for two, Mort no longer looks like something the cat brought in and then brought up.
The landlord relaxed his grip on the stout blackthorn peacemaker he kept under the bar and composed his features into something resembling a cheerful welcoming grin, although not very much.
'Evening, your lordship,' he said. 'What's your pleasure this cold pins they'll hit you around the head with a shovel and bury your body under a compost heap at full moon.It might be worth taking another look at Mort, because he's changed a lot in the last few chapters. For example, while he still has plenty of knees and elbows about his person, they seem to have migrated to their normal places and he no longer moves as though his joints were loosely fastened together with elastic bands. He used to look as if he knew nothing at all; now he looks as though he knows too much. Something about his eyes suggests that he has seen things that ordinary people never see, or at least never see more than once.Something about all the rest of him suggests to the watchers that causing an inconvenience for this boy might just be as wise as kicking a wasp nest. In short

Steve Thoms Field of Red and Gold

may have done you some terrible harm,'it added.
'Haven't you its scabbard and then nearly swallowed her tongue.
Someone had just blown hot and wetly in her ear.
That's Binky,' said the heap. 'He's just trying to be friendly. I expect he'd like some hay, if you've got any.'
With royal self-control, Keli said, This is the fourth floor. It's a lady's bedroom. don't know what I have saved, actually. Is there some light around here?'The maid sometimes leaves matches on the mantelpiece,' said Keli. She felt the presence beside her move away. There were a few hesitant footsteps, a couple of thumps, and finally a clang, although the word isn't sufficient to describe the real ripe cacophony of falling metal that filled the room. It was even followed by the traditional little tinkle a couple of seconds after you thought it was all over.The voice said, rather indistinctly, 'I'm under a suit of armour. Where should I be?'Keli slid quietly out of bed, felt her way towards the fireplace, located the bundle of matches by the faint light from the dying fire, struck one in a burst of sulphurous smoke, lit a candle, found the pile of dismembered armour, pulled its sword from

John William Waterhouse Crystal Ball

turned around. There was a girl there, about his own height and perhaps a few years older than him. She had silver hair, and eyes with a pearly sheen to them, and the kind of interesting but impractical long dress that tends to be wornyour name, boy?'
'Mortimer. They call me Mort,' he said, rubbing his elbow. 'What did you do that for?'
'I shall call you Boy,' she said. 'And I don't really have to explain myself, you understand, but if you must know I thought you were dead. You look dead.'
Mort said nothing.
'Lost your tongue?' by tragic heroines who clasp single roses to their bosom while gazing soulfully at the moon. Mort had never heard the phrase 'Pre-Raphaelite', which was a pity because it would have been almost the right description. However, such girls tend to be on the translucent, consumptive side, whereas this one had a slight suggestion of too many chocolates.She stared at him with her head on one side, and one foot tapping irritably on the floor. Then she reached out quickly and pinched him sharply on the arm.'Ow!''Hmm. So you're really real,' she said. 'What's

Henri Rousseau The Dream

correct dose of uplift and optimism.
Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination.
She always seem so, well, common to me. No offence meant."
There probably wasn't any offence meant, at that, thought Granny. Mrs Whitlow was giving her the sort of look generally used by puppies when they're not sure what to expect next, and are beginning to worry that it may be the rolled-up newspaper.
She picked up Mrs Whitlow's cup and had started to peer into it when she caught the disappointed couldn't help wondering if Mrs Whitlow was a born witch who somehow missed her training. She was certainly laying siege to the future. There was a crystal ball under a sort of pink frilly tea cosy, and several sets of divinatory cards, and a pink velvet bag of rune stones, and one of those little tables on wheels that no prudent witch would touch with a ten-foot broomstick, and -Granny wasn't sure on this point - either some special dried monkey turds from a llamassary or some dried llama turds from a monastery, which apparently could be thrown in such a way as to reveal the sum total of knowledge and wisdom in the universe. It was all rather sad. . "Or there's the tea-leaves, of course," said Mrs Whitlow, indicating the big brown pot on the table between them. "Aye know witches often prefer them, but they

Laurie Maitland fire

and mumbled a charm which she normally used to cure mastitis in elderly goats, but never mind. This display of obvious magical talent seemed to cheer up Mrs. Whitlow no end.
Granny wasn't normally very good at tea-leaves, but she squinted at the sugar-encrusted mess at the bottom of the The rocks from which Unseen University was built, however, have been absorbing magic for several thousand years and all that random power has had to go somewhere.
The University has, in fact, developed a personality.cup and let her mind wander. What she really needed now was a handy rat or even a cockroach that happened to be somewhere near Esk, so that she could Borrow its mind. What Granny actually found was that the University had a mind of its own. It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they've got the time-span all wrong. From stone's point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backwards and forwards in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring little skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well.

Edward Hopper Early Sunday Morning

walking, especially since Granny had packed their few possessions in a large sack. She sat on it for safety.
Esk sat cradling the staff and watching the woods go by. When they were several miles outside the village she said, "I thought you told me plants were different in forn parts."
"So they are."
"These back on them.
She was wearing serviceable black, and concealed about her person were a number of hatpins and a breadknife. She had hidden their small store of money, grudgingly advanced by Smith, in the mysterious strata of her underwear. Her skirt pockets jingled with lucky charms, and a freshly-forged horseshoe, always a potent preventative in time of trouble, weighed down her handbag. She felt about as ready as she ever would be to face the world.trees look just the same." Granny regarded them disdainfully. "Nothing like as good," she said. In fact she was already feeling slightly panicky. Her promise to accompany Esk to Unseen University had been made without thinking, and Granny, who picked up what little she knew of the rest of the Disc from rumour and the pages of her Almanack, was convinced that they were heading into earthquakes, tidal waves, plagues and massacres, many of them diverse or even worse. But she was determined to see it through. A witch relied too much on words ever to go

William Bouguereau Innocence

, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back Home. I think that's what I mean.'
Rincewind you?'
'Who, me?' said Rincewind. 'Gosh, no. Hundred and one things to do.'
That's all right, then. Listen, let's go and have breakfast and then we can go down to the docks.'
Rincewind nodded dismally, turned to his assistant, and took a banana out of his pocket.
'You've got the hang of it now, you take over,' he muttered.ran the sentence across his mind again. It didn't seem any better second time around.'Oh,' he said again. Well, good. If that's the way you look at it. When are you going, then?''Today, I think. There's bound to be a ship going part of the way.''I expect so,' said Rincewind awkwardly. He looked at his feet. He looked at the sky. He cleared his throat.'We've been through some times together, eh?' said Twoflower, nudging him in the ribs.'Yeah,' said Rincewind, contorting his face into something like a grin.'You're not upset, are

Sea of Cortez Cabo San Lucas

Rincewind looked at the liquid in the cup. It had probably been clean before it was poured in, now drinking it would be genocide for thousands of innocent germs.
He put it down carefully.
'Now I'm going to have a good wash!' stated Bethan, and stalked off through the curtain.
The 'They believe a star is going to crash into the Disc,' said Rincewind.
'Is it?'
'Lots of people think so.'shopkeeper waved a hand vaguely and looked appealingly at Rincewind and Twoflower.'She's not bad,' said Twoflower. 'She's going to marry a friend of ours.''Does he know?''Things not so good in the starshop said Rincewind, as sympathetically as he could manage.The little man shuddered. 'You wouldn't believe it,' he said. 'I mean, you learn not to expect much, you make a sale here and there, it's a living, you know what I mean? But these people you've got these days, the ones with these star things painted on their faces, well, I hardly have time to open the store and they're threatening to burn it down. Too magical, they say. So I say, of course magical, what else?''Are there a lot of them about, then?' said Rincewind.'All over the Disc, friend. Don't ask me why.'

Franz Marc Horse in a Landscape

the clock. It was very big, and occupied a space between two curving wooden staircases covered with carvings of things that normal men only see after a heavy session on something illegal.
It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the kind of deliberate, annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another of sound that suggested very pointedly that in someplace?'
'This is the house of Death,' she said.
'Ah,' said Rincewind. He ran a tongue over his dry lips. Well, nice to meet you, I think I ought to be getting along —'
She clapped her hands. 'Oh, you mustn't go!' she said. We don't often have living people here. hypothetical hourglass, somewhere, another few grains of sand had dropped out from under you.Needless to say, the weight on the pendulum was knife-edged and razor sharp.Something tapped him in the small of the back. He turned angrily.'Look, you son of a suitcase, I told you —'It wasn't the Luggage. It was a young woman – silver haired, silver eyed, rather taken aback.'Oh,' said Rincewind. 'Um. Hallo?''Are you alive?' she said. It was the kind of voice associated with beach umbrellas, suntan oil and long cool drinks.'Well, I hope so,' said Rincewind, wondering if his glands were having a good time wherever they were. 'Sometimes I'm not so sure. What is this

Francois Boucher Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing

possibly could. The chelonaut fell forward with a soft grunt.
The other man took one startled step before Twoflower hit him amateurishly but effectively with the telescope. He crumpled on top of his colleague.
Rincewind and it was just about the worst possible thing that was likely to happen."
"Well, you said yourself we have no way of escaping," said Twoflower, his voice muffled as he pulled the top half of a suit over his head. "Anything's better than being sacrificed."
"As soon as we get a chance we run for it," said Rincewind. "Don't get any ideas."
He thrust an arm savagely into his suit and banged his head on the helmet. He reflected briefly that someone up there was watching over him.Twoflower looked at each other over the carnage."All right!" snapped Rincewind, aware that he had lost some kind of contest but not entirely certain what it was. "Don't bother to say it. Someone out there is expecting these two guys to come out in the suits in a minute. I suppose they thought we were slaves. Help me hide these behind the drapes and then, and then-""-e'd better suit up," said Twoflower, picking up the second helmet."Yes," said Rincewind. "You know, as soon as I saw the suits I just knew I'd end up wearing one. Don't ask me how I knew - I suppose it was because

Caravaggio Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

Rincewind?"
The wizard made a small croaking noise.
"I'm sorry," said Twoflower. "What did you say?"
"...all the way... the great fall..." muttered Rincewind, His eyes focused, looked puzzled for a moment, then widened in terror. He made the mistake of looking down.
"Aargh," he opined, and began to slide.
Twoflower grabbed him.
"What's .
"Steady on," he said cheerfully. "We're nearly there."
"I wish I was back in the city," moaned Rincewind. "I wish I was back on the ground."
"I wonder if dragons can fly all the way to the stars?" mused Twoflower. "Now that would be something..."the matter?"Rincewind tried shutting his eyes, but there were no eyelids to his imagination and it was staring widely."Don't you get scared of heights?" he managed to say.Twoflower looked down at the tiny landscape, mottled with cloud shadows. The thought of fear hadn't actually occurred to him."No," he said. "Why should I? You're just as dead if you fall from forty feet as you are from four thousand fathoms, that's what I say."Rincewind tried to consider this dispassionately, but couldn't see the logic of it. It wasn't the actual falling, it was the hitting he...Twoflower grabbed him quickly