The Wizzard and the Pony
Discord frowned. Gloating, it turned out, was a lot less fun when his opponent was completely subverted to your will. True, there was still Celestia and her little rag-tag band of misfits, but really, what chance did they have of making things interesting?*
His armies were advancing upon Ankh-Morpork. Rather than petty human armies, however, he had made use of the considerable resources available to him: spite, jealousy, anger, hatred, greed, and, most importantly, the clashing, chaotic maelstrom of an overabundance of Disc magic. He had, of course, bolstered these forces with the lowest dregs of humanity, the malicious glee of the still-growing Windigo herd, what few trolls he could keep irate enough to keep them from thinking overmuch, and, most recently, the callous Ice Giants, finally free of their long imprisonment beneath the Hub.
Fundamental laws of the Disc, however, had already decided his fate. His disregard for those laws had assured it. It only remained, then, to see that fate play out. Perhaps, then, this explained the smile that then still graced the frozen Lady's face while all gods, great and small, around her were frozen in otherwise heated debate.
The laws in question are as follows:
1) Everything on the disc has its opposite.
2) With an army on one side and a ragtag bunch of misfits on the other, bet on the ragtag bunch of misfits every time.
3) Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
A fourth law, one not yet known but occasionally pondered upon, would prove to be the means by which Discord's fate had been decided. There are those in life whose entire purpose is to be the spanner in the works. Such people often live hard lives, and feel much as a spanner might feel in that situation: that the world itself was trying to grind them down.
* Due to one of the effects of the law of Narrative Causality, the answer to that question was "actually, rather good". Or, to be more accurate "one in a million".
Rincewind was thinking. This is generally considered to be a good thing to do, except in the condition Rincewind was in. Rincewind was knurd, which is an absolutely awful condition in which to do any thinking, but one in which thinking seems to be inevitable.
It is a widely known fact that in a world as magically charged as the Disc, everything has its opposite. The opposite of light, for example, is not darkness. Darkness is merely the absence of light. The opposite is what happens when you pass through darkness and out the other side, and as Rincewind could attest from personal experience, nothing good can be illuminated by such anti-light.
The opposite of Disc magic, again, was not the absence of it, but the presence of this new kind of magic, which Star Swirl the Bearded referred to as Harmony and Rincewind referred to as Horsery.
And the opposite of drunkenness, following this same pattern, is not sobriety. When one goes from blotto to sodden to drunk to tipsy, and reaches sobriety, and looks back at where he's been, and decides he hasn't gotten far enough from drunk yet, one approaches the state of knurdness.
It is, as Rincewind could attest, a terrible condition to be in. When one is knurd, one is stripped of all the little illusions that let one get through the day. One becomes aware of things that they have never been aware of before, and in excruciating detail. And the thing that most become aware of when they are knurd is themselves.
Rincewind was learning that there was a great deal about himself he had only fooled himself into thinking he was comfortable with. He had thought he was okay with being a coward, for example. He had, in fact, relished that knowledge.
In his knurd state, however, he saw that pride in his cowardice as a desperate sort of coping mechanism, like a child who knows he's on the wrong side of an argument and must resort to arguments that begin with the words "but it's okay though, because".
It didn't help that his shame, his pride, and his much-abused sense of self-worth had at some point gotten together and formed an alliance, and chose this moment of horrifying clarity to press the attack.
They're all looking to you, his pride said.
And what have you done to deserve that respect? asked his shame.
You're not worth their concern, said his self-worth. Rincewind the Coward. Rincewind the ratty little rodent, scurrying for his hole in the wall and hoping this all blows over.
Well, he said, what would you have me do? At least I know running away. And I'm alive so far!
Are you, though? said his self-worth.
I'm breathing, aren't I? Still got all my limbs? Both eyes?
But what use are you putting them to? asked his shame.
Look, Rincewind argued, I'm not Cohen. I'm not Conina. I'm not even bloody Nijel. I'm not a hero. I'm Rincewind the bloody wizard, and I am and always have been afraid. Fear is good. Fear keeps you alive.
Rincewind, in fact, had always held that there are two sorts of people in life: Those who, when presented with, say, a fierce, man-eating tiger, were properly and justifiably afraid, and those who would click their tongues at the creature and say things like "here, kitty, kitty," and "what a magnificent brute," and, ultimately, "argh, my internals have become externals".
It is interesting to note that Rincewind was not alone in this opinion.
"Rincewind," Conina said, interrupting his internal debate before it, as it threatened to, delayed them past the point of the Disc freezing over entirely. "I know you're afraid. And, well, to be blunt, you're damned well right to be."
Rincewind blinked at Conina. This was, perhaps, the last thing he had ever expected to hear from her. Conina, who blamed something called "genetics" for her unwanted predisposition towards violence and thievery, and who never seemed to fear anything or anybody. Conina, whose father had once faced the Luggage, challenged it to a melee, and won.
"My father taught me something about fear," she said. "He said that he once heard that bravery isn't lack of fear."
Rincewind was agog.
"Bravery," she continued, "is being able to act in spite of it. And then he went on to say that he didn't know much about that, but if it was true, then the bravest man he ever met was also the biggest coward on the disc."
Rincewind frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed it again. Then he thought better of that, and started to speak again, but reconsidered halfway through the first letter. Consequently, what he said was "wwww".
"Since you vanished, those years ago when the Sourceror came," she said, "I've had cause to think about those words. I don't know where you went, and I was content not knowing, but I wished I could have told you that I thought what you did, going up against a Sourceror all by yourself, was probably the bravest thing I have ever heard of."
The Librarian nodded gravely. "Ook," he said, miming a pair of shears with his fingers. After a moment's thought, he added, more forcefully, "Oook."
Nijel put a hand on Rincewind's shoulder. "Look," he said. "All I know about is heroing. Well, and being a grocer. And what I know is that somewhere on the Disc is a damsel that needs saving. And I know that when the chips are down and our backs are against the wall, if anyone can find a way out of the situation, it's you."
Star Swirl frowned. "I think," he said, "what the boy is trying to say is that we need you. You know things about this world and its magic that I never will. To hear these fine folk talk about it, you've experienced the worst this world has to offer and come out on top."
Princess Celestia flared her wings in agitation. "When you rescued my sister and me from Isrim, I thought you were the bravest, noblest human I had ever seen." She looked around the cave. "You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep. This group, as motley as we are, are together because of you. You have been so brave tonight. I know you're tired. I know you're afraid. But my sister is in trouble again, and I need you to be brave one more time." She strode up to him, looking him in the eyes. Rincewind struggled against that gaze, full not of years of experience, but of centuries, millennia, of potentiality. He was rooted to the spot. "Please," she said.
Rincewind the Brave, his pride said. She called you brave.
But it's not true, he said.
You faced Trymon, his self-worth argued. You faced Trymon and you won. You actually charged at the Things from the Dungeon Dimension to save the Sourceror from them. Charged at them! Tell me that's not brave.
I'm not brave, Rincewind said. I was... I was desperate. I'm not brave.
But, said his pride, wouldn't you like to be?
Rincewind nearly cried. It wasn't fair, having this conversation with all of them ganging up on him when he was knurd. He wanted to go home. He wanted to...
He felt an odd tugging. Something to do with home. Except instead of his old dormitory, or the library where he spent so much of his time, he thought of the Tower of Art. The Tower of Art, where such terrible things had happened. That wasn't home, though it was a sort of symbol of the University.
What was it with wizards and towers, anyway?
And then he realized what the odd tugging sensation was. What it meant.
And then, in a brilliant flash of white light that pushed all of the octarine away from their surroundings, Rincewind vanished.