Sourcery tds-5

by Terry David John Pratchett

  'I say,' said Nijel, 'are you all right?'

  'Nnh,' said Rincewind, and the syllable turned into a large doughnut.

  'You don't look all right,' said Nijel with what might be called, in the circumstances, unusual perspicacity.

  'Nnh.'

  'Why not try getting us out of here?' Nijel added, and wisely flung himself flat on the floor.

  Rincewind nodded like a puppet and pointed his loaded digit at the ceiling, which melted like ice under a blowlamp.

  Still the rumbling went on, sending its disquieting harmonics dancing through the palace. It is a well-known factoid that there are frequencies that can cause panic, and frequencies that can cause embarrassing incontinence, but the shaking rock was resonating at the frequency that causes reality to melt and run out at the corners.

  Nijel regarded the dripping ceiling and cautiously tasted it.

  'Lime custard,' he said, and added, 'I suppose there's no chance of stairs, is there?'

  More fire burst from Rincewind's ravaged fingers, coalescing into an almost perfect escalator, except that possibly no other moving staircase in the universe was floored with alligator skin.

  Nijel grabbed the gently spinning wizard and leapt aboard.

  Fortunately they had reached the top before the magic vanished, very suddenly.

  Sprouting out of the centre of the palace, shattering rooftops like a mushroom bursting through an ancient pavement, was a white tower taller than any other building in Al Khali.

  Huge double doors had opened at its base and out of them, striding along as though they owned the place, were dozens of wizards. Rincewind thought he could recognise a few faces, faces which he'd seen before bumbling vaguely in lecture theatres or peering amiably at the world in the University grounds. They weren't faces built for evil. They didn't have a fang between them. But there was some common denominator among their expressions that could terrify a thoughtful person.

  Nijel pulled back behind a handy wall. He found himself looking into Rincewind's worried eyes.

  'Hey, that's magic!'

  'I know,' said Rincewind, 'It's not right!' Nijel peered up at the sparkling tower.

  'But-’

  'It feels wrong,' said Rincewind. 'Don't ask me why.'

  Half a dozen of the Seriph's guards erupted from an arched doorway and plunged towards the wizards, their headlong rush made all the more sinister by their hastly battle silences. For a moment their swords flashed in the sunlight, and then a couple of the wizards turned, extended their hands and -

  Nijel looked away.

  'Urgh,' he said.

  A few curved swords dropped on to the cobbles.

  'I think we should very quietly go away,' said Rincewind.

  'But didn't you see what they just turned them into?' 'Dead people,' said Rincewind. 'I know. I don't want to think about it.'

  Nijel thought he'd never stop thinking about it, especially around Sam on windy nights. The point about being killed by magic was that it was much more inventive than, say, steel; there were all sorts of interesting new ways to die, and he couldn't put out of his mind the shapes he'd seen, just for an instant, before the wash of octarine fire had mercifully engulfed them.

  'I didn't think wizards were like that,' he said, as they hurried down a passageway. 'I thought they were more, well, more silly than sinister. Sort of figures of fun.'

  'Laugh that one off, then,' muttered Rincewind.

  'But they just killed them, without even-’

  'I wish you wouldn't go on about it. I saw it as well.'

  Nijel drew back. His eyes narrowed.

  'You're a wizard, too,' he said accusingly.

  'Not that kind I'm not,' said Rincewind shortly.

  'What kind are you, then?'

  'The non-killing kind.'

  'It was the way they looked at them as if it just didn't matter-’ said Nijel, shaking his head. 'That was the worst bit.'

  'Yes.'

  Rincewind dropped the single syllable heavily in front of Nijel's train of thought, like a tree trunk. The boy shuddered, but at least he shut up. Rincewind actually began to feel sorry for him, which was very unusual-he normally felt he needed all his pity for himself.

  'Is that the first time you've seen someone killed?' he said.

  'Yes.'

  'Exactly how long have you been a barbarian hero?'

  'Er. What year is this?'

  Rincewind peered around a corner, but such people as were around and vertical were far too busy panicking to bother about them.

  'Out on the road, then?' he said quietly. 'Lost track of time? I know how it is. This is the Year of the Hyena.'

  'Oh. In that case, about-’ Nijel's lips moved soundlessly-’about three days. Look', he added quickly, 'how can people kill like that? Without even thinking about it?'

  'I don't know,' said Rincewind, in a tone of voice that suggested he was thinking about it.

  'I mean, even when the vizier had me thrown in the snake pit, at least he seemed to be taking an interest.'

  'That's good. Everyone should have an interest.'

  'I mean, he even laughed!'

  Ah. A sense of humour, too.'

  Rincewind felt that he could see his future with the same crystal clarity that a man falling off a cliff sees the ground, and for much the same reason. So when Nijel said: 'They just pointed their fingers without so much as-’ , Rincewind snapped: 'Just shut up, will you? How do you think I feel about it? I'm a wizard, too!'

  'Yes, well, you'll be all right then,' muttered Nijel.

  It wasn't a heavy blow, because even in a rage Rincewind still had muscles like tapioca, but it caught the side of Nijel's head and knocked him down more by the weight of surprise than its intrinsic energy.

  'Yes, I'm a wizard all right,' Rincewind hissed. 'A wizard who isn't much good at magic! I've managed to survive up till now by not being important enough to die! And when all wizards are hated and feared, exactly how long do you think I'll last?'

  'That's ridiculous!'

  Rincewind couldn't have been more taken aback if Nijel had struck him.

  'What?'

  'Idiot! All you have to do is stop wearing that silly robe and get rid of that daft hat and no one will even know you're a wizard!'

  Rincewind's mouth opened and shut a few times as he gave a very lifelike impression of a goldfish trying to grasp the concept of tap-dancing.

  'Stop wearing the robe?' he said.

  'Sure. All those tatty sequins and things, it's a total giveaway,' said Nijel, struggling to his feet.

  'Get rid of the hat?'

  'You've got to admit that going around with "wizzard" written on it is a bit of a heavy hint.'

  Rincewind gave him a worried grin.

  'Sorry,' he said, 'I don't quite follow you-’

  'Just get rid of them. It's easy enough, isn't it? Just drop them somewhere and then you could be a, a, well, whatever. Something that isn't a wizard.'

  There was a pause, broken only by the distant sounds of fighting.

  'Er,' said Rincewind, and shook his head. 'You've lost me there ...'

  'Good grief, it's perfectly simple to understand!'

  '... not sure I quite catch your drift...' murmured Rince­wind, his face ghastly with sweat.

  'You can just stop being a wizard.'

  Rincewind's lips moved soundlessly as he replayed every word, one at a time, then all at once.

  'What?' he said, and then he said, 'Oh.'

  'Got it? Want to try it one more time?'

  Rincewind nodded gloomily.

  'I don't think you understand. A wizard isn't what you do, it's what you are. If I wasn't a wizard, I wouldn't be anything.' He took off his hat and twiddled nervously with the loose star on its point, causing a few more cheap sequins to part company.

  'I mean, it's got wizard written on my hat,' he said. 'It's very important -'

  He stopped and stared at the hat.

  'Hat,' he said vaguely, aware of some
importunate memory pressing its nose up against the windows of his mind.

  'It's a good hat,' said Nijel, who felt that something was expected of him.

  'Hat,' said Rincewind again, and then added, 'the hat! We've got to get the hat!'

  'You've got the hat,' Nijel pointed out.

  'Not this hat, the other hat. And Conina!'

  He took a few random steps along a passageway, and then sidled back.

  'Where do you suppose they are?' he said.

  'Who?'

  'There's a magic hat I've got to find. And a girl.'

  ,Why?,

  'It might be rather difficult to explain. I think there might be screaming involved somewhere.'

  Nijel didn't have much of a jaw but, such as it was, he stuck it out.

  'There's a girl needs rescuing?' he said grimly.

  Rincewind hesitated. 'Someone will probably need rescuing,' he admitted. 'It might possibly be her. Or at least in her vicinity.'

  'Why didn't you say so? This is more like it, this is what I was expecting. This is what heroism is all about. Let's go!'

  There was another crash, and the sound of people yelling.

  'Where?' said Rincewind.

  Anywhere!'

  Heroes usually have an ability to rush madly around crumbling palaces they hardly know, save everyone and get out just before the whole place blows up or sinks into the swamp. In fact Nijel and Rincewind visited the kitchens, assorted throne rooms, the stables (twice) and what seemed to Rincewind like several miles of corridor.

  Occasionally groups of black-clad guards would scurry past them, without so much as a second glance.

  'This is ridiculous,' said Nijel. 'Why don't we ask someone? Are you all right?'

  Rincewind leaned against a pillar decorated with embarrassing sculpture and wheezed.

  'You could grab a guard and torture the information out of him,' he said, gulping air. Nijel gave him an odd look.

  'Wait here,' he said, and wandered off until he found a servant industriously ransacking a cupboard.

  'Excuse me,' he said, 'which way to the harem?'

  'Turn left three doors down,' said the man, without looking around.

  'Right.'

  He wandered back again and told Rincewind.

  'Yes, but did you torture him?'

  'No.'

  'That wasn't very barbaric of you, was it?'

  'Well, I'm working up to it,' said Nijel. 'I mean, I didn't say "thank you".'

  Thirty seconds later they pushed aside a heavy bead curtain and entered the seraglio of the Seriph of Al Khali.

  There were gorgeous songbirds in cages of gold fili­gree. There were tinkling fountains. There were pots of rare orchids through which humming-birds skimmed like tiny, brilliant jewels. There were about twenty young women wearing enough clothes for, say, about half a dozen, huddled together in a silent crowd.

  Rincewind had eyes for none of this. That is not to say that the sight of several dozen square yards of hip and thigh in every shade from pink to midnight black didn't start certain tides flowing deep in the crevasses of his libido, but they were swamped by the considerably bigger flood of panic at the sight of four guards turning towards him with scimitars in their hands and the light of murder in their eyes.

  Without hesitation, Rincewind took a step backwards.

  'Over to you, friend,' he said.

  'Right!'

  Nijel drew his sword and held it out in front of him, his arms trembling at the effort.

  There were a few seconds of total silence as everyone waited to see what would happen next. And then Nijel uttered the battle cry that Rincewind would never quite forget to the end of his life.

  'Erm,’ he said, 'excuse me...'

  'It seems a shame,' said a small wizard.

  The others didn't speak. It was a shame, and there wasn't a man among them who couldn't hear the hot whine of guilt all down their backbones. But, as so often happens by that strange alchemy of the soul, the guilt made them arrogant and reckless.

  'Just shut up, will you?' said the temporary leader. He was called Benado Sconner, but there is something in the air tonight that suggests that it is not worth commit­ting his name to memory. The air is dark and heavy and full of ghosts.

  The Unseen University isn't empty, there just aren't any people there.

  But of course the six wizards sent to burn down the Library aren't afraid of ghosts, because they're so charged with magic that they practically buzz as they walk, they're wearing robes more splendid than any Archchancellor has worn, their pointy hats are more pointed than any hats have hitherto been, and the reason they're standing so close together is entirely coin­cidental.

  'It's awfully dark in here,' said the smallest of the wizards.

  'It's midnight,' said Sconner sharply, 'and the only dangerous things in here are us. Isn't that right, boys?'

  There was a chorus of vague murmurs. They were all in awe of Sconner, who was rumoured to do positive­-thinking exercises.

  'And we're not scared of a few old books, are we, lads?' He glowered at the smallest wizard. 'You're not, are you?' he added sharply.

  'Me? Oh. No. Of course not. They're just paper, like he said,' said the wizard quickly.

  'Well, then.'

  'There's ninety thousand of them, mind,' said another wizard.

  'I always heard there was no end to 'em,' said another. 'It's all down to dimensions, I heard, like what we see is only the tip of the whatever, you know, the thing that is mostly underwater-’

  'Hippopotamus?'

  Alligator?'

  'Ocean?'

  'Look, just shut up, all of you!' shouted Sconner. He hesitated. The darkness seemed to suck at the sound of his voice. It packed the air like feathers.

  He pulled himself together a bit.

  'Right then,' he said, and turned towards the forbidding doors of the Library.

  He raised his hands, made a few complicated gestures in which his fingers, in some eye-watering way, appeared to pass through each other, and shattered the doors into sawdust.

  The waves of silence poured back again, strangling the sound of falling woodchips.

  There was no doubt that the doors were smashed. Four forlorn hinges hung trembling from the frame, and a litter of broken benches and shelves lay in the wreckage. Even Sconner was a little surprised.

  'There,' he said. 'It's as easy as that. You see? Nothing happened to me. Right?'

  There was a shuffling of curly-toed boots. The darkness beyond the doorway was limned with the indistinct, eye-­aching glow of thaumaturgic radiation as possibility particles exceeded the speed of reality in a strong magical field.

  'Now then,' said Sconner, brightly, 'who would like the honour of setting the fire?'

  Ten silent seconds later he said, 'In that case I will do it myself. Honestly, I might as well be talking to the wall.'

  He strode through the doorway and hurried across the floor to the little patch of starlight that lanced down from the glass dome high above the centre of the Library (although, of course, there has always been considerable debate about the precise geography of the place; heavy concentrations of magic distort time and space, and it is possible that the Library doesn't even have an edge, never mind a centre).

  He stretched out his arms.

  'There. See? Absolutely nothing has happened. Now come on in.'

  The other wizards did so, with great reluctance and a tendency to duck as they passed through the ravished arch.

  'Okay,' said Sconner, with some satisfaction. 'Now, has everyone got their matches as instructed? Magical fire won't work, not on these books, so I want everyone to

  'Something moved up there,' said the smallest wizard.

  Sconner blinked.

  'What?'

  'Something moved up by the dome,' said the wizard, adding by way of explanation, 'I saw it.'

  Sconner squinted upwards into the bewildering shadows, and decided to exert a bit of authority.

&nbs
p; 'Nonsense,' he said briskly. He pulled out a bundle of foul­-smelling yellow matches, and said, 'Now, I want you all to pile

  'I did see it, you know,' said the small wizard, sulkily.

  'All right, what did you see?'

  'Well, I'm not exactly-’

  'You don't know, do you?' snapped Sconner.

  'I saw someth-’

  'You don't know!' repeated Sconner, 'You're just seeing shadows, just trying to undermine my authority, isn't that it?' Sconner hesitated, and his eyes glazed momentarily. 'I am calm,' he intoned, 'I am totally in control. I will not let '

  'It was-’

  'Listen, shortarse, you can just jolly well shut up, all right?'

  One of the other wizards, who had been staring upwards to conceal his embarrassment, gave a strangled little cough.

  'Er, Sconner-’

  'And that goes for you too!' Sconner pulled himself to his full, bristling height and flourished the matches.

  'As I was saying,' he said, 'I want you to light the matches and -I suppose I'll have to show you how to light matches, for the benefit of shortarse there-and I'm not out of the window, you know. Good grief. Look at me. You take a match-’

  He lit a match, the darkness blossomed into a ball of sulphurous white light, and the Librarian dropped on him like the descent of Man.

  They all knew the Librarian, in the same definite but diffused way that people know walls and floors and all the other minor but necessary scenery on the stage of life. If they recall him at all, it was as a sort of gentle mobile sigh, sitting under his desk repairing books, or knuckling his way among the shelves in search of secret smokers. Any wizard unwise enough to hazard a clandestine rollup wouldn't know anything about it until a soft leathery hand reached up and removed the offending homemade, but the Librarian never made a fuss, he just looked extremely hurt and sorrowful about the whole sad business and then ate it.

  Whereas what was now attempting with considerable effort to unscrew Sconner's head by the ears was a screaming nightmare with its lips curled back to reveal long yellow fangs.