‘Very large mice?’

‘That’s probably it.’

 

‘Hold on — it’s thinking about something,’ said Cohen.

Lackjaw looked up wearily. It had been quite nice, sitting here in the shade. He had just worked out that in trying to escape from a city of crazed madmen he had appeared to have allowed one mad man to give him his full attention. He wondered whether he would live to regret this.

He earnestly hoped so.

‘Oh yes, it’s definitely thinking,’ he said bitterly. ‘Anyone can see that.’

‘I think it’s found them.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Hold onto it.’

‘Are you mad?’ said Lackjaw.

‘I know this thing, trust me. Anyway, would you rather be left with all these star people? They might be interested in having a talk with you.’

Cohen sidled over to the Luggage, and then flung himself astride it. It took no notice.

‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to go.’

Lackjaw shrugged, and climbed on gingerly behind Cohen.

‘Oh?’ he said, ‘and how does it g —’

 

Ankh-Morpork!

Pearl of cities!

This is not a completely accurate description, of course — it was not round and shiny — but even its worst enemies would agree that if you had to liken Ankh-Morpork to anything, then it might as well be a piece of rubbish covered with the diseased secretions of a dying mollusc.

There have been bigger cities. There have been richer cities. There have certainly been prettier cities. But no city in the multiverse could rival Ankh-Morpork for its smell.

The Ancient Ones, who know everything about all the universes and have smelt the smells of Calcutta and!Xrc —! and dauntocum Marsport, have agreed that even these fine examples of nasal poetry are mere limericks when set against the glory of the Ankh-Morpork smell.

You can talk about ramps. You can talk about garlic. You can talk about France. Go on. But if you haven’t smelled Ankh-Morpork on a hot day you haven’t smelled anything.

The citizens are proud of it. They carry chairs outside to enjoy it on a really good day. They puff out their cheeks and slap their chests and comment cheerfully on its little distinctive nuances. They have even put up a statue to it, to commemorate the time when the troops of a rival state tried to invade by stealth one dark night and managed to get to the top of the walls before, to their horror, their nose plugs gave out. Rich merchants who have spent many years abroad sent back home for specially-stoppered and sealed bottles of the stuff, which brings tears to their eyes.

It has that kind of effect.

There is only really one way to describe the effect the smell of Ankh-Morpork has on the visiting nose, and that is by analogy.

Take a tartan. Sprinkle it with confetti. Light it with strobe lights.

Now take a chameleon.

Put the chameleon on the tartan.

Watch it closely.

See?

Which explains why, when the shop finally materialised in Ankh-Morpork, Rincewind sat bolt upright and said ‘We’re here,’ Bethan went pale and Twoflower, who had no sense of smell, said, ‘Really? How can you tell?’

It had been a long afternoon. They had broken into realspace in a number of walls in a variety of cities because, according to the shopkeeper, the Disc’s magical field was playing up and upsetting everything.

All the cities were empty of most of their citizens and belonged to roaming gangs of crazed left-ear people.

‘Where do they all come from?’ said Twoflower, as they fled yet another mob.

‘Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘That’s what I’ve always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Bethan, ‘or if it makes sense, I don’t like it.’.

The star was bigger than the sun. There would be no night tonight. On the opposite horizon the Disc’s own sunlet was doing its best to set normally, but the general effect of all that red light was to make the city, never particularly beautiful, look like something painted by a fanatical artist after a bad time on the shoe polish.

But it was home. Rincewind peered up and down the empty street and felt almost happy.

At the back of his mind the Spell was kicking up a ruckus, but he ignored it. Maybe it was true that magic was getting weaker as the star got nearer, or perhaps he’d had the Spell in his head for so long he had built up some kind of psychic immunity, but he found he could resist it.

‘We’re in the docks,’ he declared. ‘Just smell that sea air!’

‘Oh,’ said Bethan, leaning against the wall, ‘yes.’

‘That’s ozone, that is,’ said Rincewind. That’s air with character, is that.’ He breathed deeply.

Twoflower turned to the shopkeeper.

‘Well, I hope you find your sorcerer,’ he said. ‘Sorry we didn’t buy anything, but all my money’s in my Luggage, you see.’

The shopkeeper pushed something into his hand.

‘A little gift,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it.’

He darted back into his shop, the bell jangled, the sign saying Call Again Tomorrow For Spoonfetcher’s Leeches, the Little Suckers banged forlornly against the door, and the shop faded into the brickwork as though it had never been. Twoflower reached out gingerly and touched the wall, not quite believing it.

‘What’s in the bag?’ said Rincewind.

It was a thick brown paper bag, with string handles.

‘If it sprouts legs I don’t want to know about it,’ said Bethan.

Twoflower peered inside, and pulled out the contents.

‘Is that all?’ said Rincewind. ‘A little house with shells on?’

‘It’s very useful,’ said Twoflower defensively. ‘You can keep cigarettes in it.’

‘And they’re what you really need, are they?’ said Rincewind.

‘I’d plump for a bottle of really strong sun-tan oil,’ said Bethan.

‘Come on,’ said Rincewind, and set off down the street. The others followed.

It occurred to Twoflower that some words of comfort were called for, a little tactful small talk to take Bethan out of herself, as he would put it, and generally cheer her up.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘There’s just a chance that Cohen might still be alive.’

‘Oh, I expect he’s alive all right,’ she said, stamping along the cobbles as if she nursed a personal grievance against each one of them. ‘You don’t live to be eighty-seven in his job if you go around dying all the time. But he’s not here.’

‘Nor is my Luggage,’ said Twoflower. ‘Of course, that’s not the same thing.’

‘Do you think the star is going to hit the Disc?’

‘No,’ said Twoflower confidently.

‘Why not?’

‘Because Rincewind doesn’t think so.’

She looked at him in amazement.

‘You see,’ the tourist went on, ‘you know that thing you do with seaweed?’

Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had decided she didn’t like it. She looked blank.

‘Eat it?’

‘No, what you do is, you hang it up outside your door, and it tells you if it’s going to rain.’

Another thing Bethan had learned was that there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on as it turned a corner.

‘I see,’ she said.

‘Rincewind is like that, you see.’

‘Like seaweed.’

‘Yes. If there was anything at all to be frightened about, he’d be frightened. But he’s not. The star is just about the only thing I’ve ever seen him not frightened of. If he’s not worried, then take it from me, there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘It’s not going to rain?’ said Bethan.

‘Well, no. Metaphorically speaking.’

‘Oh.’ Bethan decided not to ask what ‘metaphorically’ meant, in case it was something to do with seaweed.

Rincewind turned around.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Not far now.’

‘Where to?’ said Twoflower.

‘ Unseen University, of course.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘Probably not, but I’m still going—’ Rincewind paused, his face a mask of pain. He put his hand to his ears and groaned.

‘Spell giving you trouble?’

‘Yargh.’

‘Try humming.’

Rincewind grimaced. ‘I’m going to get rid of this thing,’ he said thickly. ‘It’s going back into the book where it belongs. I want my head back!’

‘But then—’ Twoflower began, and stopped. They could all hear it — a distant chanting and the stamping of many feet.

‘Do you think it’s star people?’ said Bethan.

It was. The lead marchers came around a corner a hundred yards away, behind a ragged white banner with an eight-pointed star on it.

‘Not just star people,’ said Twoflower. ‘All kinds of people!’

The crowd swept them up in its passage. One moment they were standing in the deserted street, the next they were perforce moving with a tide of humanity that bore them onwards through the city.

 

Torchlight flickered easily on the damp tunnels far under the University as the heads of the eight Orders of wizardry filed onwards.

‘At least it’s cool down here,’ said one.

‘We shouldn’t be down here.’

Trymon, who was leading the party, said nothing. But he was thinking very hard. He was thinking about the bottle of oil in his belt, and the eight keys the wizards carried — eight keys that would fit the eight locks that chained the Octavo to its lectern. He was thinking that old wizards who sense that magic is draining away are preoccupied with their own problems and are perhaps less alert than they should be. He was thinking that within a few minutes the Octavo, the greatest concentration of magic on the Disc, would be under his hands.

Despite the coolness of the tunnel he began to sweat.

They came to a lead-lined door set in the sheer stone. Trymon took a heavy key — a good, honest iron key, not like the twisted and disconcerting keys that would unlock the Octavo — gave the lock a squirt of oil, inserted the key, turned it. The lock squeaked open protestingly.

‘Are we of one resolve?’ said Trymon. There was a series of vaguely affirmative grunts.

He pushed at the door.

A warm gale of thick and somehow oily air rolled over them. The air was filled with a high-pitched and unpleasant chittering. Tiny sparks of octarine fire flared off every nose, fingernail and beard.

The wizards, their heads bowed against the storm of randomised magic that blew out of the room, pushed forward. Half-formed shapes giggled and fluttered around them as the nightmare inhabitants of the Dungeon Dimensions constantly probed (with things that passed for fingers only because they were at the ends of their arms) for an unguarded entry into the circle of firelight that passed for the universe of reason and order.

Even at this bad time for all things magical, even in a room designed to damp down all magical vibrations, the Octavo was still crackling with power.

There was no real need for the torches. The Octavo filled the room with a dull, sullen light, which wasn’t strictly light at all but the opposite of light; darkness isn’t the opposite of light, it is simply its absence, and what was radiating from the book was the light that lies on the far side of darkness, the light fantastic.

It was a rather disappointing purple colour.

As has been noted before, the Octavo was chained to a lectern carved into the shape of something that looked vaguely avian, slightly reptilian and horribly alive. Two glittering eyes regarded the wizards with hooded hatred.

‘I saw it move,’ said one of them.

‘We’re safe so long as we don’t touch the book,’ said Trymon. He pulled a scroll out of his belt and unrolled it.

‘Bring that torch here,’ he said, ‘and put that cigarette out!’

He waited for the explosion of infuriated pride. But none came. Instead, the offending mage removed the dogend from his lips with trembling fingers and ground it into the floor.

Trymon exulted. So, he thought, they do what I say. Just for now, maybe — but just for now is enough.

He peered at the crabby writing of a wizard long dead.

‘Right,’ he said, let’s see: "To Appease Yt, The Thynge That Ys The Guardian…" ‘

 

The crowd surged over one of the bridges that linked Morpork with Ankh. Below it the river, turgid at the best of times, was a mere trickle which steamed.

The bridge shook under their feet rather more than it should. Strange ripples ran across the muddy remains of the river. A few tiles slid off the roof of a nearby house.

‘What was that?’ said Twoflower.

Bethan looked behind them, and screamed.

The star was rising. As the Disc’s own sun scurried for safety below the horizon the great bloated ball of the star climbed slowly into the sky until the whole of it was several degrees above the edge of the world.

They pulled Rincewind into the safety of a doorway. The crowd hardly noticed them, but ran on, terrified as lemmings.

‘The star’s got spots on,’ said Twoflower.

‘No,’ said Rincewind. ‘They’re… things. Things going around the star. Like the sun goes around the Disc. But they’re close in, because, because…’ he paused. ‘I nearly know!’

‘Know what?’

‘I’ve got to get rid of this Spell!’

‘Which way is the University?’ said Bethan.

‘This way!’ said Rincewind, pointing along the street.

‘It must be very popular. That’s where everyone’s going.’

‘I wonder why?’ said Twoflower.

‘Somehow,’ said Rincewind, ‘I don’t think it’s to enroll for evening classes.’

In fact Unseen University was under siege, or at least those parts of it that extruded into the usual, everyday dimensions were under siege. The crowds outside its gates were, generally, making one of two demands. They were demanding that either a) the wizards should stop messing about and get rid of the star or, and this was the demand favoured by the star people, that b) they should cease all magic and commit suicide in good order, thus ridding the Disc of the curse of magic and warding off the terrible threat in the sky.

The wizards on the other side of the walls had no idea how to do a) and no intention of doing b) and many had in fact plumped for c), which largely consisted of nipping out of hidden side doors and having it away on their toes as far as possible, if not faster.

What reliable magic still remained in the University was being channelled into keeping the great gates secure. The wizards were learning that while it was all very fine and impressive to have a set of gates that were locked by magic, it ought to have occurred to the builders to include some sort of emergency back-up device such as, for example, a pair of ordinary, unimpressive stout iron bolts.

In the square outside the gates several large bonfires had been lit, for effect as much as anything else, because the heat from the star was scorching.

‘But you can still see the stars,’ said Twoflower, ‘the other stars, I mean. The little ones. In a black sky.’

Rincewind ignored him. He was looking at the gates. A group of star people and citizens were trying to batter them down.

‘It’s hopeless,’ said Bethan. ‘We’ll never get in. Where are you going?’

‘For a walk,’ said Rincewind. He was setting off determinedly down a side street.

There were one or two freelance rioters here, mostly engaged in wrecking shops. Rincewind took no notice, but followed the wall until it ran parallel to a dark alley that had the usual unfortunate smell of all alleys, everywhere.

Then he started looking very closely at the stonework. The wall here was twenty feet high, and topped with cruel metal spikes.

‘I need a knife,’ he said.

‘You’re going to cut your way through?’ said Bethan.

‘Just find me a knife,’ said Rincewind. He started to tap stones.

Twoflower and Bethan looked at each other, and shrugged. A few minutes later they returned with a selection of knives, and Twoflower had even managed to find a sword.

‘We just helped ourselves,’ said Bethan.

‘But we left some money,’ said Twoflower. ‘I mean, we would have left some money, if we’d had any —’

‘So he insisted on writing a note,’ said Bethan wearily.

Twoflower drew himself up to his full height, which was hardly worth it.

‘I see no reason—’ he began, stiffly.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Bethan, sitting down glumly. ‘I know you don’t. Rincewind, all the shops have been smashed open, there was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?’

‘Yeah,’ said Rincewind, picking up a knife and testing its blade thoughtfully. ‘Luters, I expect.’

He thrust the blade into the wall, twisted it, and stepped back as a heavy stone fell out. He looked up, counting under his breath, and levered another stone from its socket.

‘How did you do that?’ said Twoflower.

‘Just give me a leg up, will you?’ said Rincewind. A moment later, his feet wedged into the holes he had created, he was making further steps halfway up the wall.

‘It’s been like this for centuries,’ his voice floated down. ‘Some of the stones haven’t got any mortar. Secret entrance, see? Watch out below.’

Another stone cracked into the cobbles.

‘Students made it long ago,’ said Rincewind. ‘Handy way in and out after lights out.’

‘Ah,’ said Twoflower, ‘I understand. Over the wall and out to brightly-lit tavernas to drink and sing and recite poetry, yes?’

‘Nearly right except for the singing and the poetry, yes,’ said Rincewind. ‘A couple of these spikes should be loose—’ There was a clang.

‘There’s not much of a drop this side,’ came his voice after a few seconds. ‘Come on, then. If you’re coming.’

 

And so it was that Rincewind, Twoflower and Bethan entered Unseen University.

Elsewhere on the campus—

The eight wizards inserted their keys and, with many a worried glance at one another, turned them. There was a faint little snicking sound as the lock slid open.

The Octavo was unchained. A faint octarine light played across its bindings.

Trymon reached out and picked it up, and none of the others objected. His arm tingled.

He turned towards the door.

‘Now to the Great Hall, brothers,’ he said, ‘if I may lead the way —’

And there were no objections.

He reached the door with the book tucked under his arm. It felt hot, and somehow prickly.

At every step he expected a cry, a protest, and none came. He had to use every ounce of control to stop himself from laughing. It was easier than he could have imagined.

The others were halfway across the claustrophobic dungeon by the time he was through the door, and perhaps they had noticed something in the set of his shoulders, but it was too late because he had crossed the threshold, gripped the handle, slammed the door, turned the key, smiled the smile.

He walked easily back along the corridor, ignoring the enraged screams of the wizards who had just discovered how impossible it is to pass spells in a room built to be impervious to magic.

The Octavo squirmed, but Trymon held it tightly. Now he ran, putting out of his mind the horrible sensations under his arm as the book shape-changed into things hairy, skeletal and spiky. His hand went numb. The faint chittering noises he had been hearing grew in volume, and there were other sounds behind them — leering sounds, beckoning sounds, sounds made by the voices of unimaginable horrors that Trymon found it all too easy to imagine. As he ran across the Great Hall and up the main staircase the shadows began to move and reform and close in around him, and he also became aware that something was following, something with skittery legs moving obscenely fast. Ice formed on the walls. Doorways lunged at him as he barrelled past. Underfoot the stairs began to feel just like a tongue…

Not for nothing had Trymon spent long hours in the University’s curious equivalent of a gymnasium, building up mental muscle. Don’t trust the senses, he knew, because they can be deceived. The stairs are there, somewhere—will them to be there, summon them into being as you climb and, boy, you better get good at it. Because this isn’t all imagination.

 

Great A’Tuin slowed.

With flippers the size of continents the skyturtle fought the pull of the star, and waited. There would not be long to wait…

 

Rincewind sidled into the Great Hall. There were a few torches burning, and it looked as though it had been set up for some sort of magical work. But the ceremonial candlesticks had been overturned, the complex octograms chalked on the floor were scuffed as if something had danced on them, and the air was full of a smell unpleasant even by Ankh-Morpork’s broad standards. There was a hint of sulphur to it, but that underlay something worse. It smelt like the bottom of a pond.

There was a distant crash, and a lot of shouting.

‘Looks like the gates have gone down,’ said Rincewind.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Bethan.

‘The cellars are this way,’ said Rincewind, and set off through an arch.

‘Down there!’

‘Yes. Would you rather stay here?’

He took a torch from its bracket on the wall and started down the steps.

After a few flights the walls stopped being panelled and were bare stone. Here and there heavy doors had been propped open.

‘I heard something,’ said Twoflower.

Rincewind listened. There did seem to be a noise coming from the depths below. It didn’t sound frightening. It sounded like a lot of people hammering on a door and shouting ‘Oi!’

‘It’s not those Things from the Dungeon Dimensions you were telling us about, is it?’ said Bethan.

‘They don’t swear like that,’ said Rincewind. ‘Come on.’

They hurried along the dripping passages, following the screamed curses and deep hacking coughs that were somehow reassuring; anything that wheezed like that, the listeners decided, couldn’t possibly represent a danger.

At last they came to a door set in an alcove. It looked strong enough to hold back the sea. There was a tiny grille.

‘Hey!’ shouted Rincewind. It wasn’t very useful, but he couldn’t think of anything better.

There was a sudden silence. Then a voice from the other side of the door said, very slowly, ‘Who is out there?’

Rincewind recognised that voice. It had jerked him from daydreams into terror on many a hot classroom afternoon, years before. It was Lemuel Panter, who had once made it his personal business to hammer the rudiments of scrying and summoning into young Rincewind’s head. He remembered the eyes like gimlets in a piggy face and the voice saying ‘And now Mister Rincewind will come out here and draw the relevant symbol on the board’ and the million mile walk past the waiting class as he tried desperately to remember what the voice had been droning on about five minutes before. Even now his throat was going dry with terror and randomised guilt. The Dungeon Dimensions just weren’t in it.

‘Please sir, it’s me, sir, Rincewind, sir,’ he squeaked. He saw Twoflower and Bethan staring at him, and coughed, ‘Yes,’ he added, in as deep a voice as he could manage. ‘That’s who it is. Rincewind. Right.’

There was a susurration of whispers on the other side of the door.

‘Rincewind?’

‘Prince who?’

‘I remember a boy who wasn’t any—’

‘The spell, remember?’

‘Rincewind?’

There was a pause. Then the voice said, ‘I suppose the key isn’t in the lock, is it?’

‘No,’ said Rincewind.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said no.’

‘Typical of the boy.’

‘Um, who is in there?’ said Rincewind.

‘The Masters of Wizardry,’ said the voice, haughtily.

‘Why?’

There was another pause, and then a conference of embarrassed whispers.

‘We, uh, got locked in,’ said the voice, reluctantly.

‘What, with the Octavo?’

Whisper, whisper.

‘The Octavo, in fact, isn’t in here, in fact,’ said the voice slowly.

‘Oh. But you are?’ said Rincewind, as politely as possible while grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.

‘That would appear to be the case.’

‘Is there anything we can get you?’ said Twoflower anxiously.

‘You could try getting us out.’

‘Could we pick the lock?’ said Bethan.

‘No use,’ said Rincewind. ‘Totally thief-proof.’

‘I expect Cohen would have been able to,’ said Bethan loyally. ‘Wherever he’s got to.’

‘The Luggage would soon smash it down,’ agreed Twoflower.

‘Well, that’s it then,’ said Bethan. ‘Let’s get out into the fresh air. Fresher air, anyway.’ She turned to walk away.

‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Rincewind. ‘That’s just typical, isn’t it? Old Rincewind won’t have any ideas, will he? Oh, no, he’s just a makeweight, he is. Kick him as you pass. Don’t rely on him, he’s —’

‘All right,’ said Bethan. ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

‘— a nonentity, a failure, just a — what?’

‘How are you going to get the door open?’ said Bethan.

Rincewind looked at her with his mouth open. Then he looked at the door. It really was very solid, and the lock had a smug air.

But he had got in, once, long ago. Rincewind the student had pushed at the door and it had swung open, and then a moment later the Spell had jumped into his mind and ruined his life.

‘Look,’ said a voice from behind the grille, as kindly as it could manage. ‘Just go and find us a wizard, there’s a good fellow.’

Rincewind took a deep breath.

‘Stand back,’ he rasped.

‘What?’

‘Find something to hide behind,’ he barked, with his voice shaking only slightly. ‘You too,’ he said to Bethan and Twoflower.

‘But you can’t —’

‘I mean it!’

‘He means it,’ said Twoflower. ‘That little vein on the side of his forehead, you know, when it throbs like that, well —’

‘Shut up!’

Rincewind raised one arm uncertainly and pointed it at the door.

There was total silence.

Oh gods, he thought, what happens now?

In the blackness at the back of his mind the Spell shifted uneasily.

Rincewind tried to get in tune or whatever with the metal of the lock. If he could sow discord amongst its atoms so that they flew apart —

Nothing happened.

He swallowed hard, and turned his attention to the wood. It was old and nearly fossilised, and probably wouldn’t burn even if soaked in oil and dropped into a furnace. He tried anyway, explaining to the ancient molecules that they should try to jump up and down to keep warm —

In the strained silence of his own mind he glared at the Spell, which looked very sheepish.

He considered the air around the door itself, how it might best be twisted into weird shapes so that the door existed in another set of dimensions entirely.

The door sat there, defiantly solid.

Sweating, his mind beginning the endless walk up to the blackboard in front of the grinning class, he turned desperately to the lock again. It must be made of little bits of metal, not very heavy —

From the grille came the faintest of sounds. It was the noise of wizards untensing themselves and shaking their heads.

Someone whispered, ‘I told you—’

There was a tiny grinding noise, and a click.

Rincewind’s face was a mask. Perspiration dripped off his chin.

There was another click, and the grinding of reluctant spindles. Trymon had oiled the lock, but the oil had been soaked up by the rust and dust of years, and the only way for a wizard to move something by magic, unless he can harness some external movement, is to use the leverage of his mind itself.

Rincewind was trying very hard to prevent his brain being pushed out of his ears.

The lock rattled. Metal rods flexed in pitted groves, gave in, pushed levers.

Levers clicked, notches engaged. There was a long drawn-out grinding noise that left Rincewind on his knees.

The door swung open on pained hinges. The wizards sidled out cautiously.

Twoflower and Bethan helped Rincewind to his feet. He stood grey-faced and swaying.

‘Not bad,’ said one of the wizards, looking closely at the lock. ‘A little slow, perhaps.’

‘Never mind that!’ snapped Jiglad Wert. ‘Did you three see anyone on the way down here?’

‘No,’ said Twoflower.

‘Someone has stolen the Octavo.’

Rincewind’s head jerked up. His eyes focussed.

‘Who?’

‘Trymon —’

Rincewind swallowed. ‘Tall man?’ he said. ‘Fair hair, looks a bit like a ferret?’

‘Now that you mention it —’

‘He was in my class,’ said Rincewind. ‘They always said he’d go a long way.’

‘He’ll go a lot further if he opens the book,’ said one of the wizards, who was hastily rolling a cigarette in shaking fingers.

‘Why?’ said Twoflower. ‘What will happen?’

The wizards looked at one another.

‘It’s an ancient secret, handed down from mage to mage, and we can’t pass it on to knowlessmen,’ said Wert.

‘Oh, go on,’ said Twoflower.

‘Oh well, it probably doesn’t matter any more. One mind can’t hold all the spells. It’ll break down, and leave a hole.’

‘What? In his head?’

‘Um. No. In the fabric of the Universe,’ said Wert. ‘He might think he can control it by himself, but —’

They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow vibration, then rose suddenly to a knife-edge whine that bypassed the eardrums and bored straight into the brain. It sounded like a human voice singing, or chanting, or screamfng, but there were deeper and more horrible harmonics.

The wizards went pale. Then, as one man, they turned and ran up the steps.

There were crowds outside the building. Some people were holding torches, others had stopped in the act of piling kindling around the walls. But everyone was staring up at the Tower of Art.

The wizards pushed their way through the unheeding bodies, and turned to look up.

The sky was full of moons. Each one was three times bigger than the Disc’s own moon, and each was in shadow except for a pink crescent where it caught the light of the star.

But in front of everything the top of the Tower of Art was an incandescent fury. Shapes could be dimly glimpsed within it, but there was nothing reassuring about them. The sound had changed now to the wasplike buzzing, magnified a million times.

Some of the wizards sank to their knees.

‘He’s done it,’ said Wert, shaking his head. ‘He’s opened a pathway.’

‘Are those things demons?’ said Twoflower.

‘Oh, demons,’ said Wert. ‘Demons would be a picnic compared with what’s trying to come through up there.’

‘They’re worse than anything we can possibly imagine,’ said Panter.

‘I can imagine some pretty bad things,’ said Rincewind.

‘These are worse.’

‘Oh.’

‘And what do you propose to do about it?’ said a clear voice.

They turned. Bethan was glaring at them, arms folded.

‘Pardon?’ said Wert.

‘You’re wizards, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, get on with it.’

‘What, tackle that?’ said Rincewind.

‘Know anyone else?’

Wert pushed forward. ‘Madam, I don’t think you quite understand —’

‘The Dungeons Dimensions will empty into our Universe, right?’ said Bethan.

‘Well, yes —’

‘We’ll all be eaten by things with tentacles for faces, right?’

‘Nothing so pleasant, but —’

‘And you’re just going to let it happen?’

‘Listen,’ said Rincewind. ‘It’s all over, do you see? You can’t put the spells back in the book, you can’t unsay what’s been said, you can’t —’

‘You can try!’

Rincewind sighed, and turned to Twoflower.

He wasn’t there. Rincewind’s eyes turned inevitably towards the base of the Tower of Art, and he was just in time to see the tourist’s plump figure, sword inexpertly in hand, as it disappeared into a door.

Rincewind’s feet made their own decision and, from the point of view of his head, got it entirely wrong.

The other wizards watched him go.

‘Well?’ said Bethan. ‘He’s going.’. The wizards tried to avoid one another’s eyes.

Eventually Wert said, ‘We could try, I suppose. It doesn’t seem to be spreading.’

‘But we’ve got hardly any magic to speak of,’ said one of the wizards.

‘Have you got a better idea, then?’

One by one, their ceremonial robes glittering in the weird light, the wizards turned and trudged towards the tower.

The tower was hollow inside, with the stone treads of its staircase mortared spiral-fashion into the walls. Twoflower was already several turns up by the time Rincewind caught him.

‘Hold on,’ he said, as cheerfully as he could manage. ‘This sort of thing is a job for the likes of Cohen, not you. No offence.’

‘Would he do any good?’

Rincewind looked up at the actinic light that lanced down through the distant hole at the top of the staircase.

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Then I’d be as good as him, wouldn’t I?’ said Twoflower, flourishing his looted sword.

Rincewind hopped after him, keeping as close to the wall as possible.

‘You don’t understand!’ he shouted. ‘There’s unimaginable horrors up there!’

‘You always said I didn’t have any imagination.’

‘It’s a point, yes,’ Rincewind conceded, ‘but —’

Twoflower sat down.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to something like this ever since I came here. I mean, this is an adventure, isn’t it? Alone against the gods, that sort of thing?’

Rincewind opened and shut his mouth for a few seconds before the right words managed to come out.

‘Can you use a sword?’ he said weakly.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried.’

‘You’re mad!’

Twoflower looked at him with his head on one side. ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ he said. ‘I’m here because I don’t know any better, but what about you?’ He pointed downwards, to where the other wizards were toiling up the stairs. ‘What about them?’

Blue light speared down the inside of the tower. There was a peal of thunder.

The wizards reached them, coughing horribly and fighting for breath.

‘What’s the plan?’ said Rincewind.

‘There isn’t one,’ said Wert.

‘Right. Fine,’ said Rincewind. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it, then.’

‘You’ll come with us,’ said Panter.

‘But I’m not even a proper wizard. You threw me out, remember?’

‘I can’t think of any student less able,’ said the old wizard, ‘but you’re here, and that’s the only qualification you need. Come on.’

The light flared and went out. The terrible noises died as if strangled.

Silence filled the tower; one of those heavy, pressing silences.

‘It’s stopped,’ said Twoflower.

Something moved, high up against the circle of red sky. It fell slowly, turning over and over and drifting from side to side. It hit the stairs a turn above them.

Rincewind was first to it.

It was the Octavo. But it lay on the stone as limp and lifeless as any other book, its pages fluttering in the breeze that blew up the tower.

Twoflower panted up behind Rincewind, and looked down.

‘They’re blank,’ he whispered. ‘Every page is completely blank.’

‘Then he did it,’ said Wert. ‘He’s read the spells. Successfully, too. I wouldn’t have believed it.’

‘There was all that noise,’ said Rincewind doubtfully. ‘The light, too. Those shapes. That didn’t sound so successful to me.’

‘Oh, you always get a certain amount of extradimen-sional attention in any great work of magic,’ said Panter dismissively. ‘It impresses people, nothing more.’

‘It looked like monsters up there,’ said Twoflower, standing closer to Rincewind.

‘Monsters? Show me some monsters!’ said Wert.

Instinctively they looked up. There was no sound. Nothing moved against the circle of light.

‘I think we should go up and, er, congratulate him,’ said Wert.

‘Congratulate?’ exploded Rincewind. ‘He stole the Octavo! He locked you up!’

The wizards exchanged knowing looks.

‘Yes, well,’ said one of them. ‘When you’ve advanced in the craft, lad, you’ll know that there are times when the important thing is success.’

‘It’s getting there that matters,’ said Wert bluntly. ‘Not how you travel.’

They set off up the spiral.

Rincewind sat down, scowling at the darkness.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Twoflower, who was holding the Octavo.

‘This is no way to treat a book,’ he said. ‘Look, he’s bent the spine right back. People always do that, they’ve got no idea of how to treat them.’

‘Yah,’ said Rincewind vaguely.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Twoflower.

‘I’m not worried, I’m just angry,’ snapped Rincewind. ‘Give me the bloody thing!’

He snatched the book and snapped it open viciously.

He rummaged around in the back of his mind, where the Spell hung out.

‘All right,’ he snarled. You’ve had your fun, you’ve ruined my life, now get back to where you belong!’

‘But I—’ protested Twoflower.

‘The Spell, I mean the Spell,’ said Rincewind. ‘Go on, get back on the page!’

He glared at the ancient parchment until his eyes crossed.

‘Then I’ll say you!’ he shouted, his voice echoing up the tower. ‘You can join the rest of them and much good may it do you!’

He shoved the book back into Twoflower’s arms and staggered off up the steps.

The wizards had reached the top and disappeared from view. Rincewind climbed after them.

‘Lad, am I?’ he muttered. ‘When I’m advanced in the craft, eh? I just managed to go around with one of the Great Spells in my head for years without going totally insane, didn’t I?’ He considered the last question from all angles. Yes, you did,’ he reassured himself. ‘You didn’t start talking to trees, even when trees started talking to you.’

His head emerged into the sultry air at the top of the tower.

He had expected to see fire-blackened stones criss-crossed with talon marks, or perhaps something even worse.

Instead he saw the seven senior wizards standing by Trymon, who seemed totally unscathed. He turned and smiled pleasantly at Rincewind.

‘Ah, Rincewind. Come and join us, won’t you?’

So this is it, Rincewind thought. All that drama for nothing. Maybe I really am not cut out to be a wizard, maybe —

He looked up and into Trymon’s eyes.

Perhaps it was the Spell, in its years of living in Rincewind’s head, that had affected his eyes. Perhaps his time with Twoflower, who only saw things as they ought to be, had taught him to see things as they are.

But what was certain was that by far the most difficult thing Rincewind did in his whole life was look at Trymon without running in terror or being very violently sick.

The others didn’t seem to have noticed.

They also seemed to be standing very still.

Trymon had tried to contain the seven Spells in his mind and it had broken, and the Dungeon Dimensions had found their hole, all right. Silly to have imagined that the Things would have come marching out of a sort of rip in the sky, waving mandibles and tentacles. That was old-fashioned stuff, far too risky. Even nameless terrors learned to move with the times. All they really needed to enter was one head.

His eyes were empty holes.

Knowledge speared into Rincewind’s mind like a knife of ice. The Dungeon Dimensions would be a playgroup compared to what the Things could do in a universe of order. People were craving order, and order they would get — the order of the turning screw, the immutable law of straight lines and numbers. They would beg for the harrow…

Trymon was looking at him. Something was looking at him. And still the others hadn’t noticed. Could he even explain it? Trymon looked the same as he had always done, except for the eyes, and a slight sheen to his skin.

Rincewind stared, and knew that there were far worse things than Evil. All the demons in Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing. But the grey world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred. It wouldn’t even notice them.

Trymon held out his hand.

‘The eighth spell,’ he said. ‘Give it to me.’

Rincewind backed away.

‘This is disobedience, Rincewind. I am your superior, after all. In fact, I have been voted the supreme head of all the Orders.’

‘Really?’ said Rincewind hoarsely. He looked at the other wizards. They were immobile, like statues.

‘Oh yes,’ said Trymon pleasantly. ‘Quite without prompting, too. Very democratic.’

‘I preferred tradition,’ said Rincewind. ‘That way even the dead get the vote.’

‘You will give me the spell voluntarily,’ said Trymon. ‘Do I have to show you what I will do otherwise? And in the end you will still yield it. You will scream for the opportunity to give it to me.’

If it stops anywhere, it stops here, thought Rincewind.

‘You’ll have to take it,’ he said. ‘I won’t give it to you.’

‘I remember you,’ said Trymon. ‘Not much good as a student, as I recall. You never really trusted magic, you kept on saying there should be a better way to run a universe. Well, you’ll see. I have plans. We can —’

‘Not we,’ said Rincewind firmly.

‘Give me the Spell!’

‘Try and take it,’ said Rincewind, backing away. ‘I don’t think you can.’

‘Oh?’

Rincewind jumped aside as octarine fire flashed from Trymon’s fingers and left a bubbling rock puddle on the stones.

He could sense the Spell lurking in the back of his mind. He could sense its fear.

In the silent caverns of his head he reached out for it. It retreated in astonishment, like a dog faced with a maddened sheep. He followed, stamping angrily through the disused lots and inner-city disaster areas of his subconscious, until he found it cowering behind a heap of condemned memories. It roared silent defiance at him, but Rincewind wasn’t having any.

Is this it? he shouted at it. When it’s time for the showdown, you go and hide? You’re frightened?

The Spell said, that’s nonsense, you can’t possibly believe that, I’m one of the Eight Spells. But Rincewind advanced on it angrily, shouting, Maybe, but the fact is I do believe it and you’d better remember whose head you’re in, right? I can believe anything I like in here!

Rincewind jumped aside again as another bolt of fire lanced through the hot night. Trymon grinned, and made nother complicated motion with his hands.

Pressure gripped Rincewind. Every inch of his skin felt as though it was being used as an anvil. He flopped onto his knees.

‘There are much worse things,’ said Trymon pleasantly. ‘I can make your flesh burn on the bones, or fill your body with ants. I have the power to —’

‘I have a sword, you know.’

The voice was squeaky with defiance.

Rincewind raised his head. Through a purple haze of pain he saw Twoflower standing behind Trymon, holding a sword in exactly the wrong way.

Trymon laughed, and flexed his fingers. For a moment his attention was diverted.

Rincewind was angry. He was angry at the Spell, at the world, at the unfairness of everything, at the fact that he hadn’t had much sleep lately, at the fact that he wasn’t thinking quite straight. But most of all he was angry with Trymon, standing there full of the magic Rincewind had always wanted but had never achieved, and doing nothing worthwhile with it.

He sprang, striking Trymon in the stomach with his head and flinging his arms around him in desperation. Twoflower was knocked aside as they slid along the stones.

Trymon snarled, and got out the first syllable of a spell before Rincewind’s wildly flailing elbow caught him in the neck. A blast of randomised magic singed Rincewind’s hair.

Rincewind fought as he always fought, without skill or fairness or tactics but with a great deal of whirlwind effort. The strategy was to prevent an opponent getting enough time to realise that in fact Rincewind wasn’t a very good or strong fighter, and it often worked.

It was working now, because Trymon had spent rather too much time reading ancient manuscripts and not getting enough healthy exercise and vitamins. He managed to get several blows in, which Rincewind was far too high on rage to notice, but he only used his hands while Rincewind employed knees, feet and teeth as well.

He was, in fact, winning.

This came as a shock.

It came as more of a shock when, as he knelt on Trymon’s chest hitting him repeatedly about the head, the other man’s face changed. The skin crawled and waved like something seen through a heat haze, and Trymon spoke.

‘Help me!’

For a moment his eyes looked up at Rincewind in fear, pain and entreaty. Then they weren’t eyes at all, but multi-faceted things on a head that could be called a head only by stretching the definition to its limits. Tentacles and saw-edged legs and talons unfolded to rip Rincewind’s rather sparse flesh from his body.

Twoflower, the tower and the red sky all vanished. Time ran slowly, and stopped.

Rincewind bit hard on a tentacle that was trying to pull his face off. As it uncoiled in agony he thrust out a hand and felt it break something hot and squishy.

They were watching. He turned his head, and saw that now he was fighting on the floor of an enormous amphitheatre. On each side tier upon tier of creatures stared down at him, creatures with bodies and faces that appeared to have been made by crossbreeding nightmares. He caught a glimpse of even worse things behind him, huge shadows that stretched into the overcast sky, before the Trymon-monster lunged at him with a barbed sting the size of a spear.

Rincewind dodged sideways, and then swung around with both hands clasped together into one fist that caught the thing in the stomach, or possibly the thorax, with a blow that ended in the satisfying crunch of chitin.

He plunged forward, fighting now out of terror of what would happen if he stopped. The ghostly arena was full of the cluttering of the Dungeon creatures, a wall of rustling sound that hammered at his ears as he struggled. He imagined that sound filling the Disc, and he flung blow after blow to save the world of men, to preserve the little circle of firelight in the dark night of chaos and to close the gap through which the nightmare was advancing. But mainly he hit it to stop it hitting back.

Claws or talons drew white-hotlines across his back, and something bit his shoulder, but he found a nest of soft tubes among all the hairs and scales and squeezed it hard.

An arm barbed with spikes swept him away, and he rolled over in the gritty black dust.

Instinctively he curled into a ball, but nothing happened. Instead of the onslaught of fury he expected he opened his eyes to see the creature limping away from him, various liquids leaking from it.

It was the first time anything had ever run away from Rincewind.

He dived after it, caught a scaly leg, and wrenched. The creature chittered at him and flailed desperately with such appendages as were still working, but Rincewind’s grip was unshakeable. He pulled himself up and planted one last satisfying blow into its remaining eye. It screamed, and ran. And there was only one place for it to run to.

The tower and the red sky came back with the click of restored time.

As soon as he felt the press of the flagstones under his feet Rincewind flung his weight to one side and rolled on his back with the frantic creature at arms’ length.

‘Now!’ he yelled.

‘Now what?’ said Twoflower. ‘Oh. Yes. Right!’

He swung the sword inexpertly but with some force, missing Rincewind by inches and burying it deeply in the Thing. There was a shrill buzzing, as though he had smashed a wasp’s nest, and the melee of arms and legs and tentacles flailed in agony. It rolled again, screaming and thrashing at the flagstones, and then it was thrashing at nothing at all because it had rolled over the edge of the stairway, taking Rincewind with it.

There was a squelching noise as it bounced off a few of the stone steps, and then a distant and disappearing shriek as it tumbled the depth of the tower.

Finally there was a dull explosion and a flash of octarine light.

Then Twoflower was alone on the top of the tower — alone, that is, except for seven wizards who still seemed to be frozen to the spot.

He sat bewildered as seven fireballs rose out of the blackness and plunged into the discarded Octavo, which suddenly looked its old self and far more interesting.

‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I suppose they’re the Spells.’

‘Twoflower.’ The voice was hollow and echoing, and just recognisable as Rincewind’s.

Twoflower stopped with his hand halfway to the book.

‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Is that — is that you, Rincewind?’

‘Yes,’ said the voice, resonant with the tones of the grave. ‘And there is something very important I want you to do for me, Twoflower.’

Twoflower looked around. He pulled himself together. So the fate of the Disc would depend on him, after all.

‘I’m ready,’ he said, his voice vibrating with pride. ‘What is it you want me to do?’

‘First, I want you to listen very carefully,’ said Rincewind’s disembodied voice patiently.

‘I’m listening.’

‘It’s very important that when I tell you what to do you don’t say "What do you mean?" or argue or anything, understand?’

Twoflower stood to attention. At least, his mind stood to attention, his body really couldn’t. He stuck out several of his chins.

‘I’m ready,’ he said.

‘Good. Now, what I want you to do is —’

‘Yes?’

Rincewind’s voice rose from the depths of the stairwell.

‘I want you to come and help me up before I lose my grip on this stone,’ it said.

Twoflower opened his mouth, then shut it quickly. He ran to the square hole and peered down. By the ruddy light of the star he could just make out Rincewind’s eyes looking up at him.

Twoflower lay down on his stomach and reached out. Rincewind’s hand gripped his wrist in the sort of grip that told Twoflower that if he, Rincewind, wasn’t pulled up then there was no possible way in which that grip was going to be relaxed.

‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ he said.

‘Good. So am I,’ said Rincewind.

He hung around in the darkness for a bit. After the past few minutes it was almost enjoyable, but only almost.

‘Pull me up, then,’ he hinted.

‘I think that might be sort of difficult,’ grunted Twoflower. ‘I don’t actually think I can do it, in fact.’

‘What are you holding on to, then?’

‘You.’

‘I mean besides me.’

‘What do you mean, besides you?’ said Twoflower.

Rincewind said a word.

‘Well, look,’ said Twoflower. The steps go around in a spiral, right? If I sort of swing you and then you let go —’

‘If you’re going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might not even still be there, you can forget it,’ said Rincewind sharply.

‘There is an alternative, then.’

‘Out with it, man.’

‘You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones which certainly are there,’ said Twoflower.

Dead silence came from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, ‘That was sarcasm.’

‘I thought it was just stating the obvious.’

Rincewind grunted.

‘I suppose you couldn’t do some magic—’ Twoflower began.

‘No.’

‘Just a thought.’

There was a flare of light far below, and a confused shouting, and then more lights, more shouting, and a line f torches starting up the long spiral.

‘There’s some people coming up the stairs,’ said Twoflower, always keen to inform.

‘I hope they’re running,’ said Rincewind. ‘I can’t feel my arm.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said Twoflower. ‘I can feel mine.’

The leading torch stopped its climb and a voice rang out, filling the hollow tower with indecipherable echoes.

‘I think,’ said Twoflower, aware that he was gradually sliding further over the hole, ‘that was someone telling us to hold on.’

Rincewind said another word.

Then he said, in a lower and more urgent tone, ‘Actually, I don’t think I can hang on any longer.’

‘Try.’

‘It’s no good, I can feel my hand slipping!’

Twoflower sighed. It was time for harsh measures. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Drop, then. See if I care.’

‘What?’ said Rincewind, so astonished he forgot to let go.

‘Go on, die. Take the easy way out.’

‘Easy?’.

‘All you have to do is plummet screaming through the air and break every bone in your body,’ said Twoflower. ‘Anybody can do it. Go on. I wouldn’t want you to think that perhaps you ought to stay alive because we need you to say the Spells and save the Disc. Oh, no. Who cares if we all get burned up? Go on, just think of yourself. Drop.’

There was a long, embarrassed silence.

‘I don’t know why it is,’ said Rincewind eventually, in a voice rather louder than necessary, ‘but ever since I met you I seem to have spent a lot of time hanging by my fingers over certain depth, have you noticed?’

‘Death,’ corrected Twoflower.

‘Death what?’ said Rincewind.

‘Certain death,’ said Twoflower helpfully, trying to ignore the slow but inexorable slide of his body across the flagstones. ‘Hanging over certain death. You don’t like heights.’

‘Heights I don’t mind,’ said Rincewind’s voice from the darkness. ‘Heights I can live with. It’s depths that are occupying my attention at the moment. Do you know what I’m going to do when we get out of this?’

‘No?’ said Twoflower, wedging his toes into a gap in the flagstones and trying to make himself immobile by sheer force of will.

‘I’m going to build a house in the flattest country I can find and it’s only going to have a ground floor and I’m not even going to wear sandals with thick soles —’

The leading torch came around the last turn of the spiral and Twoflower looked down on the grinning face of Cohen. Behind him, still hopping awkwardly up the stones, he could make out the reassuring bulk of the Luggage.

‘Everything all right?’ said Cohen. ‘Can I do anything?’

Rincewind took a deep breath.

Twoflower recognised the signs. Rincewind was about to say something like, ‘Yes, I’ve got this itch on the back of my neck, you couldn’t scratch it, could you, on your way past?’ or ‘No, I enjoy hanging over bottomless drops’ and he decided he couldn’t possibly face that. He spoke very quickly.

‘Pull Rincewind back onto the stairs,’ he snapped. Rincewind deflated in mid-snarl.

Cohen caught him around the waist and jerked him unceremoniously onto the stones.

‘Nasty mess down on the floor down there,’ he said conversationally. ‘Who was it?’

‘Did it—’ Rincewind swallowed, ‘did it have — you know — tentacles and things?’

‘No,’ said Cohen. ‘Just the normal bits. Spread out a bit, of course.’

Rincewind looked at Twoflower, who shook his head.

‘Just a wizard who let things get on top of him,’ he said.

Unsteadily, with his arms screaming at him, Rincewind let himself be helped back onto the roof of the tower.

‘How did you get here?’ he added.

Cohen pointed to the Luggage, which had trotted over to Twoflower and opened its lid like a dog that knows it’s been bad and is hoping that a quick display of affection may avert the rolled-up newspaper of authority.

‘Bumpy but fast,’ he said admiringly. ‘I’ll tell you this, no-one tries to stop you.’

Rincewind looked up at the sky. It was indeed full of moons, huge cratered discs now ten times bigger than the Disc’s tiny satellite. He looked at them without much interest. He felt washed out and stretched well beyond breaking point, as fragile as ancient elastic.

He noticed that Twoflower was trying to set up his picture box.

Cohen was looking at the seven senior wizards.

‘Funny place to put statues,’ he said. ‘No-one can see them. Mind you, I can’t say they’re up to much. Very poor work.’

Rincewind staggered across and tapped Wert gingerly on the chest. He was solid stone.

This is it, he thought. I just want to go home.

Hang on, I am home. More or less. So I just want a good sleep, and perhaps it will all be better in the morning.

His gaze fell on the Octavo, which was outlined in tiny flashes of octarine fire. Oh yes, he thought.

He picked it up and thumbed idly through its pages. They were thick with complex and swirling script that changed and reformed even as he looked at it. It seemed undecided as to what it should be; one moment it was an orderly, matter-of-fact printing; the next a series of angular runes. Then it would be curly Kythian spellscript. Then it would be pictograms in some ancient, evil and forgotten writing that seemed to consist exclusively of unpleasant reptilian beings doing complicated and painful things to one another…

The last page was empty. Rincewind sighed, and looked in the back of his mind. The Spell looked back.

He had dreamed of this moment, how he would finally evict the Spell and take vacant possession of his own head and learn all those lesser spells which had, up until then, been too frightened to stay in his mind. Somehow he had expected it to be far more exciting.

Instead, in utter exhaustion and in a mood to brook no argument, he stared coldly at the Spell and jerked a metaphorical thumb over his shoulder. You. Out.

It looked for a moment as though the Spell was going to argue, but it wisely thought better of it.

There was a tingling sensation, a blue flash behind his eyes, and a sudden feeling of emptiness.

When he looked down at the page it was full of words. They were runes again. He was glad about that, the reptilian pictures were not only unspeakable but probably unpronounceable too, and reminded him of things he would have great difficulty in forgetting.

He looked blankly at the book while Twoflower bustled around unheeded and Cohen tried in vain to lever the rings off the stone wizards.

He had to do something, he reminded himself. What was it, now?

He opened the book at the first page and began to read, his lips moving and his forefinger tracing the outline of each letter. As he mumbled each word it appeared soundlessly in the air beside him, in bright colours that streamed away in the night wind. He turned over the page.

Other people were coming up the steps now — star people, citizens, even some of the Patrician’s personal guard. A couple of star people made a half-hearted attempt to approach Rincewind, who was surrounded now by a rainbow swirl of letters and took absolutely no notice of them, but Cohen drew his sword and looked nonchalantly at them and they thought better of it.

Silence spread out from Rincewind’s bent form like ripples in a puddle. It cascaded down the tower and spread out through the milling crowds below, flowed over the walls, gushed darkly through the city, and engulfed the lands beyond.

The bulk of the star loomed silently over the Disc. In the sky around it the new moons turned slowly and noiselessly.

The only sound was Rincewind’s hoarse whispering as he turned page after page.

‘Isn’t this exciting!’ said Twoflower. Cohen, who was rolling a cigarette from the tarry remnants of its ancestors, looked at him blankly, paper halfway to his lips.

‘Isn’t what exciting?’ he said.

‘All this magic!’

‘It’s only lights,’ said Cohen critically. ‘He hasn’t even produced doves out of his sleeves.’

‘Yes, but can’t you sense the occult potentiality?’ said Twoflower.

Cohen produced a big yellow match from somewhere in his tobacco bag, looked at Wert for a moment, and with great deliberation struck the match on his fossilised nose.

‘Look,’ he said to Twoflower, as kindly as he could manage. ‘What do you expect? I’ve been around a long time, I’ve seen the whole magical thing, and I can tell you that if you go around with your jaw dropping all the time people hit it. Anyway, wizard’s die just like anyone else when you stick a —’

There was a loud snap as Rincewind shut the book. He stood up, and looked around.

What happened next was this:

Nothing.

It took a little while for people to realise it. Everyone had ducked instinctively, waiting for the explosion of white light or scintillating fireball or, in the case of Cohen, who had fairly low expectations, a few white pigeons, possibly a slightly crumpled rabbit.

It wasn’t even an interesting nothing. Sometimes things can fail to happen in quite impressive ways, but as far as non-events went this one just couldn’t compete.

‘Is that it?’ said Cohen. There was a general muttering from the crowd, and several of the star people were looking angrily at Rincewind.

The wizard stared wearily at Cohen.

‘I suppose so,’ he said.

‘But nothing’s happened.’

Rincewind looked blankly at the Octavo.

‘Maybe it has a subtle effect?’ he said hopefully. ‘After all, we don’t know exactly what is supposed to happen.’

‘We knew it!’ shouted one of the star people. ‘Magic doesn’t work! It’s all illusion!’

A stone looped over the roof and hit Rincewind on the shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ said another star person. ‘Let’s get him!’

‘Let’s throw him off the tower!’

‘Yeah, let’s get him and throw him off the tower!’

The crowd surged forward. Twoflower held up his hands.

‘I’m sure there’s just been a slight mistake—’ he began, before his legs were kicked from underneath him.

‘Oh bugger,’ said Cohen, dropping his dogend and grinding it under a sandalled foot. He drew his sword and looked around for the Luggage.

It hadn’t rushed to Twoflower’s aid. It was standing in front of Rincewind, who was clutching the Octavo to his chest like a hot-water bottle and looking frantic.

A star man lunged at him. The Luggage raised its lid threateningly.

‘I know why it hasn’t worked,’ said a voice from the back of the crowd. It was Bethan.

‘Oh yeah?’ said the nearest citizen. ‘And why should we listen to you?’

A mere fraction of a second later Cohen’s sword was pressed against his neck.

‘On the other hand,’ said the man evenly, ‘perhaps we should pay attention to what this young lady has got to say.’

As Cohen swung around slowly with his sword at the ready Bethan stepped forward and pointed to the swirling shapes of the spells, which still hung in the air around Rincewind.

‘That one can’t be right,’ she said, indicating a smudge of dirty brown amidst the pulsing, brightly coloured flares.

You must have mispronounced a word. Let’s have a look.’

Rincewind passed her the Octavo without a word.

She opened it and peered the pages.

‘What funny writing,’ she said. ‘It keeps changing. What’s that crocodile thing doing to the octopus?’

Rincewind looked over her shoulder and, without thinking, told her. She was silent for a moment.

‘Oh,’ she said levelly. ‘I didn’t know crocodiles could do that.’

‘It’s just ancient picture writing,’ said Rincewind hurriedly. ‘It’ll change if you wait. The Spells can appear in every known language.’

‘Can you remember what you said when the wrong colour appeared?’

Rincewind ran a finger down the page.

‘There, I think. Where the two-headed lizard is doing — whatever it’s doing.’

Twoflower appeared at her other shoulder. The Spell flowed into another script.

‘I can’t even pronounce it,’ said Bethan. ‘Squiggle, squiggle, dot, dash.’

‘That’s Cupumuguk snow runes,’ said Rincewind. ‘I think it should be pronounced "zph".’

‘It didn’t work, though. How about "sph"?’

They looked at the word. It remained resolutely off-colour.

‘Or "sff"?’ said Bethan.

‘It might be "tsff",’ said Rincewind doubtfully. If anything the colour became a dirtier shade of brown.

‘How about "zsff"?’ said Twoflower.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Rincewind. ‘With snow runes the —’

Bethan elbowed him in the stomach and pointed.

The brown shape in the air was now a brilliant red.

The book trembled in her hands. Rincewind grabbed her around the waist, snatched Twoflower by the collar, and jumped backwards.

Bethan lost her grip on the Octavo, which tumbled towards the floor. And didn’t reach it.

 

The air around the Octavo glowed. It rose slowly, flapping its pages like wings.

Then there was a plangent, sweet twanging noise and it seemed to explode in a complicated silent flower of light which rushed outwards, faded, and was gone.

But something was happening much further up in the sky…

 

Down in the geological depths of Great A’Tuin’s huge brain new thoughts surged along neural pathways the size of arterial roads. It was impossible for a sky turtle to change its expression, but in some indefinable way its scaly, meteor-pocked face looked quite expectant.

It was staring fixedly at the eight spheres endlessly orbiting around the star, on the very beaches of space.

The spheres were cracking.

Huge segments of rock broke away and began the long spiral down to the star. The sky filled with glittering shards.

From the wreckage of one hollow shell a very small sky turtle paddled its way into the red light. It was barely bigger than an asteroid, its shell still shiny with molten yolk.

There were four small world-elephant calves on there, too. And on their backs was a discworld, tiny as yet, covered in smoke and volcanoes.

Great A’Tuin waited until all eight baby turtles had freed themselves from their shells and were treading space and looking bewildered. Then, carefully, so as not to dislodge anything, the old turtle turned and with considerable relief set out on the long swim to the blessedly cool, bottomless depths of space.

The young turtles followed, orbiting their parent.

 

Twoflower stared raptly at the display overhead. He probably had the best view of anyone on the Disc.

Then a terrible thought occurred to him.

‘Where’s the picture box?’ he asked urgently.

‘What?’ said Rincewind, eyes fixed on the sky.

‘The picture box,’ said Twoflower. ‘I must get a picture of this!’

‘Can’t you just remember it?’ said Bethan, not looking at him.

‘I might forget.’

‘I won’t ever forget,’ she said. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘Much better than pigeons and billiard balls,’ agreed Cohen. ‘I’ll give you that, Rincewind. How’s it done?’

‘I dunno,’ said Rincewind.

‘The star’s getting smaller,’ said Bethan.

Rincewind was vaguely aware of Twoflower’s voice arguing with the demon who lived in the box and painted the pictures. It was quite a technical argument, about field depths and whether or not the demon still had enough red paint.

It should be pointed out that currently Great A’Tuin was very pleased and contented, and feelings like that in a brain the size of several large cities are bound to radiate out. In fact most people on the Disc were currently in a state of mind normally achievable only by a lifetime of dedicated meditation or about thirty seconds of illegal herbage.

That’s old Twoflower, Rincewind thought. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate beauty, he just appreciates it in his own way. I mean, if a poet sees a daffodil he stares at it and writes a long poem about it, but Twoflower wanders off to find a book on botany. And treads on it. It’s right what Cohen said. He just looks at things, but nothing he looks at is ever the same again. Including me, I suspect.

The Disc’s own sun rose. The star was already dwindling, and it wasn’t quite so much competition. Good reliable Disc light poured across the enraptured landscape, like a sea of gold.

Or, as the more reliable observers generally held, like golden syrup.

 

That is a nice dramatic ending, but life doesn’t work like that and there were other things that had to happen.

There was the Octavo, for example.

As the sunlight hit it the book snapped shut and started to fall back to the tower. And many of the observers realised that dropping towards them was the single most magical thing on the Discworld.

The feeling of bliss and brotherhood evaporated along with the morning dew. Rincewind and Twoflower were elbowed aside as the crowd surged forward, struggling and trying to climb up one another, hands outstretched.

The Octavo dropped into the centre of the shouting mass. There was a snap. A decisive snap, the sort of snap made by a lid that doesn’t intend to be opening in a hurry.

Rincewind peered between someone’s legs at Twoflower.

‘Do you know what I think’s going to happen?’ he said, grinning.

‘What?’

‘I think that when you open the Luggage there’s just going to be your laundry in there, that’s what I think.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I think the Octavo knows how to look after itself. Best place for it, really.’

‘I suppose so. You know, sometimes I get the feeling that the Luggage knows exactly what it’s doing.’

‘I know what you mean.’

They crawled to the edge of the milling crowd, stood up, dusted themselves off and headed for the steps. No-one paid them any attention.

‘What are they doing now?’ said Twoflower, trying to see over the heads of the throng.

‘It looks as though they’re trying to lever it open,’ said Rincewind.

There was a snap and a scream.

‘I think the Luggage rather enjoys the attention,’ said Twoflower, as they began their cautious descent.

‘Yes, it probably does it good to get out and meet people,’ said Rincewind, ‘and now I think it’d do me good to go and order a couple of drinks.’

‘Good idea,’ said Twoflower. ‘I’ll have a couple of drinks too.’

 

It was nearly noon when Twoflower awoke. He couldn’t remember why he was in a hayloft, or why he was wearing someone else’s coat, but he did wake up with one idea right in the forefront of his mind.

He decided it was vitally important to tell Rincewind about it.

He fell out of the hay and landed on the Luggage.

‘Oh, you’re here, are you?’ he said. ‘I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.’

The Luggage looked bewildered.

‘Anyway, I want to comb my hair. Open up,’ said Twoflower.

The Luggage obligingly flipped its lid. Twoflower rooted around among the bags and boxes inside until he found a comb and mirror and repaired some of the damage of the night. Then he looked hard at the Luggage.

‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me what you’ve done with the Octavo?’

The Luggage’s expression could only be described as wooden.

‘All right. Come on, then.’

Twoflower stepped out into the sunlight, which was slightly too bright for his current tastes, and wandered aimlessly along the street. Everything seemed fresh and new, even the smells, but there didn’t seem to be many people up yet. It had been a long night.

He found Rincewind at the foot of the Tower of Art, supervising a team of workmen who had rigged up a gantry of sorts on the roof and were lowering the stone wizards to the ground. He seemed to be assisted by a monkey, but Twoflower was in no mood to be surprised at anything.

‘Will they be able to be turned back?’ he said.

Rincewind looked around. ‘What? Oh, it’s you. No, probably not. I’m afraid they dropped poor old Wert, anyway. Five hundred feet onto cobbles.’

‘Will you be able to do anything about that?’

‘Make a nice rockery.’ Rincewind turned and waved at the workmen.

‘You’re very cheerful,’ said Twoflower, a shade reproachfully. ‘Didn’t you go to bed?’

‘Funny thing, I couldn’t sleep,’ said Rincewind. ‘I came out for a breath of fresh air, and no-one seemed to have any idea what to do, so I just sort of got people together,’ he indicated the librarian, who tried to hold his hand, ‘and started organising things. Nice day, isn’t it? Air like wine.’

‘Rincewind, I’ve decided that —’

‘You know, I think I might re-enroll,’ said Rincewind cheerfully. ‘I think I could really make a go of things this time. I can really see myself getting to grips with magic and graduating really well. They do say if it’s summa cum laude, then the living is easy—.’

‘Good, because —’

‘There’s plenty of room at the top, too, now all the big boys will be doing doorstop duty, and —’

‘I’m going home.’

‘— a sharp lad with a bit of experience of the world could — what?’

‘Oook?’

‘I said I’m going home,’ repeated Twoflower, making polite little attempts to shake off the librarian, who was trying to pick lice off him.

‘What home?’ said Rincewind, astonished.

‘Home home. My home. Where I live,’ Twoflower explained sheepishly. ‘Back across the sea. You know. Where I came from. Will you please stop doing that?’

‘Oh.’

‘Oook?’

There was a pause. Then Twoflower said, ‘You see, last night it occurred to me, I thought, well, the thing is, all this travelling and seeing things is fine but there’s also a lot of fun to be had from having been. You know, sticking all your pictures in a book and remembering things.’

‘There is?’

‘Oook?’

‘Oh, 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 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 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.

‘Oook.’

 

In fact there wasn’t any ship going anywhere near the Agatean Empire, but that was an academic point because Twoflower simply counted gold pieces into the hand of the first captain with a halfway clean ship until the man suddenly saw the merits of changing his plans.

Rincewind waited on the quayside until Twoflower had finished paying the man about forty times more than his ship was worth.

‘That’s settled, then,’ said Twoflower. ‘He’ll drop me at the Brown Islands and I can easily get a ship from there.’

‘Great,’ said Rincewind.

Twoflower looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he opened the Luggage and pulled out a bag of gold.

‘Have you seen Cohen and Bethan?’ he said.

‘I think they went off to get married,’ said Rincewind. ‘I heard Bethan say it was now or never.’

‘Well, when you see them give them this,’ said Twoflower, handing him the bag. ‘I know it’s expensive, setting up home for the first time.’

Twoflower had never fully understood the gulf in the exchange rate. The bag could quite easily set Cohen up with a small kingdom.

‘I’ll hand it over first chance I get,’ he said, and to his own surprise realised that he meant it.

‘Good. I’ve thought about something to give you, too.’

‘Oh, there’s no —’

Twoflower rummaged in the Luggage and produced a large sack. He began to fill it with clothes and money and the picture box until finally the Luggage was completely empty. The last thing he put in was his souvenir musical cigarette box with the shell-encrusted lid, carefully wrapped in soft paper.

‘It’s all yours,’ he said, shutting the Luggage’s lid. ‘I shan’t really need it any more, and it won’t fit on my wardrobe anyway.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t you want it?’

‘Well, I — of course, but — it’s yours. It follows you, not me.’

‘Luggage,’ said Twoflower, ‘this is Rincewind. You’re his, right?’

The Luggage slowly extended its legs, turned very deliberately and looked at Rincewind.

‘I don’t think it belongs to anyone but itself, really,’ said Twoflower.

‘Yes,’ said Rincewind uncertainly.

‘Well, that’s about it, then,’ said Twoflower. He held out his hand.

‘Goodbye, Rincewind. I’ll send you a postcard when I get home. Or something.’

‘Yes. Any time you’re passing, there’s bound to be someone here who knows where I am.’

‘Yes. Well. That’s it, then.’

‘That’s it, right enough.’

‘Right.’

‘Yep.’

Twoflower walked up the gangplank, which the impatient crew hauled up behind him.

The rowing drum started its beat and the ship was propelled slowly out onto the turbid waters of the Ankh, now back to their old level, where it caught the tide and turned towards the open sea.

Rincewind watched it until it was a dot. Then he looked down at the Luggage. It stared back at him.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Go away. I’m giving you to yourself, do you understand?’

He turned his back on it and stalked away. After a few seconds he was aware of the little footsteps behind him. He spun around.

‘I said I don’t want you!’ he snapped, and gave it a kick.

The Luggage sagged. Rincewind stalked away.

After he had gone a few yards he stopped and listened. There was no sound. When he turned the Luggage was where he had left it. It looked sort of huddled. Rincewind hought for a while.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

He turned his back and strode off to the University. After a few minutes the Luggage appeared to make up its mind, extended its legs again and padded after him. It didn’t see that it had a lot of choice.

They headed along the quay and into the city, two dots on a dwindling landscape which, as the perspective broadened, included a tiny ship starting out across a wide green sea that was but a part of a bright circling ocean on a cloud-swirled Disc on the back of four giant elephants that themselves stood on the shell of an enormous turtle.

Which soon became a glint among the stars, and disappeared.

 

The End