Sourcery tds-5

by Terry David John Pratchett

  The terrified wizards turned to run and found themselves bumping into bookshelves that had unaccountably blocked the aisles. The smallest wizard yelped and rolled under a table laden with atlases, and lay with his hands over his ears to block out the dreadful sounds as the remaining wizards tried to escape.

  Eventually there was nothing but silence, but it was that particularly massive silence created by something moving very stealthily, as it might be, in search of something else. The smallest wizard ate the tip of his hat out of sheer terror.

  The silent mover grabbed him by the leg and pulled him gently but firmly out into the open, where he gibbered a bit with his eyes shut and then, when ghastly teeth failed to meet in his throat, ventured a quick glance.

  The Librarian picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dangled him reflectively a foot off the ground, just out of reach of a small and elderly wire-haired terrier who was trying to remember how to bite people's ankles.

  'Er-! said the wizard, and was then thrown in an almost flat trajectory through the broken doorway, where his fall was broken by the floor.

  After a while a shadow next to him said, 'Well, that's it, then. Anyone seen that daft bastard Sconner?'

  And a shadow on the other side of him said, 'I think my neck's broken.'

  'Who's that?'

  'That daft bastard,' said the shadow, nastily.

  'Oh. Sorry, Sconner.'

  Sconner stood up, his whole body now outlined in magical aura. He was trembling with rage as he raised his hands.

  'I'll show that wretched throwback to respect his evolutionary superiors-’ he snarled.

  'Get him, lads!'

  And Sconner was borne to the flagstones again under the weight of all five wizards.

  'Sorry, but-’

  '- you know that if you use-’

  `- magic near the Library, with all the magic that's in there-’

  '- get one thing wrong and it's a critical Mass and then -'

  'BANG! Goodnight, world!'

  Sconner growled. The wizards sitting on him decided that getting up was not the wisest thing they could do at this point.

  Eventually he said, 'Right. You're right. Thank you. It was wrong of me to lose my temper like that. Clouded my judgement. Essential to be dispassionate. You're absolutely right. Thank you. Get off.

  They risked it. Sconner stood up.

  'That monkey,' he said, 'has eaten its last banana. Fetch-’

  'Er. Ape, Sconner,' said the smallest wizard, unable to stop himself. 'It's an ape, you see. Not a monkey...'

  He wilted under the stare.

  'Who cares? Ape, monkey, what's the difference?' said Sconner. 'What's the difference, Mr Zoologist?'

  'I don't know, Sconner,' said the wizard meekly. 'I think it's a class thing.'

  'Shut up.'

  'Yes, Sconner.'

  'You ghastly little man,' said Sconner.

  He turned and added, in a voice as level as a sawblade: 'I am perfectly controlled. My mind is as cool as a bald mammoth. My intellect is absolutely in charge. Which one of you sat on my head? No, I must not get angry. I am not angry. I am thinking positively. My facul­ties are fully engaged - do any of you wish to argue?'

  'No, Sconner,' they chorused.

  'Then get me a dozen barrels of oil and all the kindling you can find! That ape's gonna fry!'

  From high in the Library roof, home of owls and bats and other things, there was a clink of chain and the sound of glass being broken as respectfully as possible.

  'They don't look very worried,' said Nijel, slightly affronted.

  'How can I put this?' said Rincewind. 'When they come to write the list of Great Battle Cries of the World, "Erm, excuse me" won't be one of them.'

  He stepped to one side. 'I'm not with him,' he said earnestly to a grinning guard. 'I just met him, some­where. In a pit.' He gave a little laugh. 'This sort of thing happens to me all the time,' he said.

  The guards stared through him.

  'Erm,’ he said.

  'Okay,' he said.

  He sidled back to Nijel.

  'Are you any good with that sword?'

  Without taking his eyes off the guards, Nijel fumbled in his pack and handed Rincewind the book.

  'I've read the whole of chapter three,' he said. 'It's got illustrations.'

  Rincewind turned over the crumpled pages. The book had been used so hard you could have shuffled it, but what was probably once the front cover showed a rather poor woodcut of a muscular man. He had arms like two bags full of footballs, and he was standing knee­deep in languorous women and slaughtered victims with a smug expression on his face.

  About him was the legend: Inne Juste 7 Dayes I wille make You a Barbearian Hero! Below it, in a slightly smal­ler type, was the name: Cohen the Barbarean. Rincewind rather doubted it. He had met Cohen and, while he could read after a fashion, the old boy had never really mastered the pen and still signed his name with an 'X', which he usually spelled wrong. On the other hand, he gravitated rapidly to anything with money in it.

  Rincewind looked again at the illustration, and then at Nijel.

  'Seven days?'

  'Well, I'm a slow reader.'

  'Ah,' said Rincewind.

  'And I didn't bother with chapter six, because I prom­ised my mother I'd stick with just the looting and pil­laging, until I find the right girl.'

  'And this book teaches you how to be a hero?'

  'Oh, yes. It's very good.' Nijel gave him a worried glance. 'That's all right, isn't it? It cost a lot of money.'

  'Well, er. I suppose you’d better get on with it, then.'

  Nijel squared his, for want of a better word, shoul­ders, and waved his sword again.

  'You four had better just jolly well watch out,' he said, 'or ... hold on a moment.' He took the book from Rince­wind and riffled through the pages until he found what he was looking for, and continued, 'Yes, or "the chill winds of fate will blow through your bleached skel­etons,’ the legions of Hell will drown your living soul in acid". There. How dyou like them ... excuse me a moment ... apples?'

  There was a metallic chord as four men drew their swords in perfect harmony.

  Nijel's sword became a blur. It made a complicated figure eight in the air in front of him, spun over his arm, flicked from hand to hand behind his back, seemed to orbit his chest twice, and leapt like a salmon.

  One or two of the harem ladies broke into spontan­eous applause. Even the guards looked impressed.

  'That's a Triple Orcthrust with Extra Flip,' said Nijel proudly. 'I broke a lot of mirrors learning that. Look, they're stopping.'

  'They've never seen anything like it, I imagine,' said Rincewind weakly, judging the distance to the doorway.

  'I should think not.'

  'Especially the last bit, where it stuck in the ceiling.'

  Nijel looked upwards.

  'Funny,' he said, 'it always did that at home, too. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.'

  'Search me.'

  'Gosh, I'm sorry,' said Nijel, as the guards seemed to realise that the entertainment was over and closed in for the kill.

  'Don't blame youself-’ said Rincewind, as Nijel reached up and tried unsuccessfully to free the blade.

  'Thank you.'

  '- I'll do it for you.'

  Rincewind considered his next step. In fact, he con­sidered several steps. But the door was too far away and anyway, by the sound of it, things were not a lot health­ier out there.

  There was only one thing for it. He'd have to try magic.

  He raised his hand and two of the men fell over. He raised his other hand and the other two fell over.

  Just as he was beginning to wonder about this, Conina stepped daintily over the prone bodies, idly rubbing the sides of her hands.

  'I thought you’d never turn up,' she said. 'Who's your friend?'

  As has already been indicated, the Luggage seldom shows any sign of emotion, or at least any emotion less extreme than blind ra
ge and hatred, and therefore it is hard to gauge its feelings when it woke up, a few miles outside Al Khali, on its lid in a dried-up wadi with its legs in the air.

  Even a few minutes after dawn the air was like the breath of a furnace. After a certain amount of rocking the Luggage managed to get most of its feet pointing the right way, and stood doing a complicated slow-motion jig to keep as few of them on the burning sand as possible.

  It wasn't lost. It always knew exactly where it was. It was always here.

  It was just that everywhere else seemed to have been temporarily mislaid.

  After some deliberation the Luggage turned and walked very slowly, into a boulder.

  It backed away and sat down, rather puzzled. It felt as though it had been stuffed with hot feathers, and it was dimly aware of the benefits of shade and a nice cool drink.

  After a few false starts it walked to the top of a nearby sand dune, which gave it an unrivalled view of hundreds of other dunes.

  Deep in its heartwood the Luggage was troubled. It had been spurned. It had been told to go away. It had been rejected. It had also drunk enough orakh to poison a small country.

  If there is one thing a travel accessory needs more than anything else, it is someone to belong to. The Luggage set off unsteadily across the scorching sand, full of hope.

  'I don't think we've got time for introductions,' said Rince­wind, as a distant part of the palace collapsed with a thump that vibrated the floor. 'It's time we were-’

  He realised he was talking to himself.

  Nijel let go of the sword.

  Conina stepped forward.

  'Oh, no,' said Rincewind, but it was far too late. The world had suddenly separated into two parts - the bit which contained Nijel and Conina, and the bit which contained everything else. The air between them crackled. Probably, in their half, a distant orchestra was playing, bluebirds were tweeting, little pink clouds were barrelling through the sky, and all the other things that happen at times like this. When that sort of thing is going on, mere collapsing palaces in the next world don't stand a chance.

  'Look, perhaps we can just get the introductions over with,' said Rincewind desperately. 'Nijel-’

  '- the Destroyer-’ said Nijel dreamily.

  'All right, Nijel the Destroyer,' said Rincewind, and added, 'Son of Harebut the-’

  'Mighty,' said Nijel. Rincewind gaped a bit, and then shrugged.

  'Well, whoever,' he conceded. 'Anyway, this is Conina. Which is rather a coincidence, because you'll be interested to know that her father was mmph.'

  Conina, without turning her gaze, had extended a hand and held Rincewind's face in a gentle grip which, with only a slight increase in finger pressure, could have turned his head into a bowling ball.

  'Although I could be mistaken,' he added, when she took her hand away. 'Who knows? Who cares? What does it matter?'

  They didn't take any notice.

  'I'll just go and see if I can find the hat, shall I?' he said.

  'Good idea,' murmured Conina.

  'I expect I shall get murdered, but I don't mind,' said Rincewind.

  'Jolly good,' said Nijel.

  'I don't expect anyone will even notice I'm gone,' said Rincewind.

  'Fine, fine,' said Conina.

  'I shall be chopped into small pieces, I expect,' said Rincewind, walking toward the door at the speed of a dying snail.

  Conina blinked.

  'What hat?' she said, and then, 'Oh, that hat.'

  'I suppose there's no possible chance that you two might be of some assistance?' Rincewind ventured.

  Somewhere inside Conina and Nijel's private world the bluebirds went to roost, the little pink clouds drifted away and the orchestra packed up and sneaked off to do a private gig at a nightclub somewhere. A bit of reality reasserted itself.

  Conina dragged her admiring gaze away from Nijel's rapt face and turned it on to Rincewind, where it grew slightly cooler.

  She sidled across the floor and grabbed the wizard by the arm.

  'Look,' she said, 'you won't tell him who I really am, will you? Only boys get funny ideas and - well, anyway, if you do I will personally break all your-’

  'I'll be far too busy,' said Rincewind, 'what with you helping me get the hat and everything. Not that I can imagine what you see in him,' he added, haughtily.

  'He's nice. I don't seem to meet many nice people.'

  'Yes, well-’

  'He's looking at us!'

  'So what? You're not frightened of him, are you?'

  'Suppose he talks to me!'

  Rincewind looked blank. Not for the first time in his life, he felt that there were whole areas of human experience that had passed him by, if areas could pass by people. Maybe he had passed them by. He shrugged.

  'Why did you let them take you off to the harem without a fight?' he said.

  'I've always wanted to know what went on in one.'

  There was a pause. 'Well?' said Rincewind.

  'Well, we all sat round, and then after a bit the Seriph came in, and then he asked me over and said that since I was new it would be my turn, and then, you'll never guess what he wanted me to do. The girls said it's the only thing he's interested in.'

  'Er.'

  'Are you all right?'

  'Fine, fine,' Rincewind muttered.

  'Your face has gone all shiny.'

  'No, I'm fine, fine.'

  'He asked me to tell him a story.'

  'What about?' said Rincewind suspiciously.

  'The other girls said he prefers something with rabbits in it.'

  'Ah. Rabbits.'

  'Small fluffy white ones. But the only stories I know are the ones father taught me when I was little, and I don't think they're really suitable.'

  'Not many rabbits?'

  'Lots of arms and legs being chopped off,' said Conina, and sighed. 'That's why you mustn't tell him about me you see? I'm just not cut out for a normal life.'

  'Telling stories in a harem isn't bloody normal,' said Rincewind. 'It'll never catch on.'

  'He's looking at us again!' Conina grabbed Rincewind's arm.

  He shook her off. 'Oh, good grief,' he said, and hurried across the room to Nijel, who grabbed his other arm.

  'You haven't been telling her about me, have you?' he demanded. 'I'll never live it down if you've told her that I'm only just learning how-’

  'Nonono. She just wants you to help us. It's a sort of quest.'

  Nijel's eyes gleamed.

  'You mean a geas?' he said.

  'Pardon?'

  'It's in the book. To be a proper hero it says you've got to labour under a geas.'

  Rincewind's forehead wrinkled. 'Is it a sort of bird?'

  'I think it's more a sort of obligation, or something,' said Nijel, but without much certainty.

  'Sounds more like a kind of bird to me,' said Rincewind, 'I'm sure I read it in a bestiary once. Large. Couldn't fly. Big pink legs, it had.' His face went blank as his ears digested what they had just heard his lips say.

  Five seconds later they were out of the room, leaving behind four prone guards and the harem ladies themselves, who settled down for a bit of story-telling.

  The desert rimwards of Al Khali is bisected by the river Tsort, famed in myth and lies, which insinuates its way through the brown landscapes like a long damp descriptive passage punctuated with sandbanks. And every sandbank is covered with sunbaked logs, and most of the logs are the kind of logs that have teeth, and most of the logs opened one lazy eye at the distant sounds of splashing from upstream, and suddenly most of the logs had legs. A dozen scaly bodies slipped into the turbid waters, which rolled over them again. The dark waters were unruffled, except for a few inconsequen­tial V -shaped ripples.

  The Luggage paddled gently down the stream. The water was making it feel a little better. It spun gently in the weak current, the focus of several mysterious little swirls that sped across the surface of the water.

  The ripples converged.
/>   The Luggage jerked. Its lid flew open. It shot under the surface with a brief, despairing creak.

  The chocolate-coloured waters of the Tsort rolled back again. They were getting good at it.

  And the tower of sourcery loomed over Al Khali like a vast and beautiful fungus, the kind that appear in books with little skull-and-crossbones symbols beside them.

  The Seriph's guard had fought back, but there were now quite a lot of bewildered frogs and newts around the base of the tower, and they were the fortunate ones. They still had arms and legs, of a sort, and most of their essential organs were still on the inside. The city was under the rule of sourcery ... martial lore.

  Some of the buildings nearest the base of the tower were already turning into the bright white marble that the wizards obviously preferred.

  The trio stared out through a hole in the palace walls.

  'Very impressive,' said Conina critically. 'Your wizards are more powerful than I thought.'

  'Not my wizards,' said Rincewind. 'I don't know whose wizards they are. I don't like it. All the wizards I knew couldn't stick one brick on another.'

  'I don't like the idea of wizards ruling everybody,' said Nijel. 'Of course, as a hero I am philosophically against the whole idea of wizardry in any case. The time will come when,' his eyes glazed slightly, as if he was trying to remember something he'd seen somewhere, 'the time will come when all wizardry has gone from the face of the world and the sons of, of - anyway, we can all be a bit more practical about things,' he added lamely.

  'Read it in a book, did you?’ said Rincewind sourly. Any geas in it?'

  'He's got a point,' said Conina. 'I've nothing against wizards, but it's not as if they do much good. There just a bit of decoration, really. Up to now.'

  Rincewind pulled off his hat. It was battered, stained and covered with rock dust, bits of it had been sheared off, the point was dented and the star was shedding sequins like pollen, but the word "blizzard" was still just readable under the grime.

  'See this?' he demanded, red in the face. 'Do you see it? Do you? What does it tell you?'

  'That you can't spell?' said Nijel.

  'What? No! It says I'm a wizard, that's what! Twenty years behind the staff, and proud of it! I've done my time, I have! I've pas - I've sat dozens of exams! If all the spells I've read were piled on top of one another, they'd ... it'd ... you'd have a lot of spells!'