Equal Rites

For a few seconds nothing happened. He stood with his lips moving soundlessly, and then silence spread out from him like candlelight. Ripples of noiselessness washed across the crowds in the hall, striking the walls with all the force of a blown kiss and then curling back in waves. People watched their companions mouthing silently and then went red with effort when their own laughter was as audible as a gnat’s squeak.

Tiny motes of light winked into existence around his head. They whirled and spiralled in a complex three-dimensional dance, and then formed a shape.

In fact it seemed to Esk that the shape had been there all the time, waiting for her eyes to see it, in the same way that a perfectly innocent cloud can suddenly become, without changing in any way, a whale or a ship or a face.

The shape around Simon’s head was the world.

That was quite clear, although the glitter and rush of the little lights blurred some of the detail. But there was Great A’Tuin the sky turtle, with the four Elephants on its back, and on them the Disc itself. There was the sparkle of the great waterfall around the edge of the world, and there at the very hub a tiny needle of rock that was the great mountain Cori Celesti, where the gods lived.

The image expanded and homed in on the Circle Sea and then on Ankh itself, the little lights flowing away from Simon and winking out of existence a few feet from his head. Now they showed the city from the air, rushing towards the watchers. There was the University itself, growing larger. There was the Great Hall

- there were the people, watching silent and open-mouthed, and Simon himself, outlined in specks of silver light. And a tiny sparkling image in the air around him, and that image contained an image and another and another

There was a feeling that the universe had been turned inside out in all dimensions at once. It was a bloated, swollen sensation. It sounded as though the whole world had said “gloop".

The walls faded. So did the floor. The paintings of former great mages, all scrolls and beards and slightly constipated frowns, vanished. The tiles underfoot, a rather nice black and white pattern, evaporated—to be replaced by fine sand, grey as moonlight and cold as ice. Strange and unexpected stars glittered overhead; on the horizon were low hills, eroded not by wind or rain in this weatherless place but by the soft sandpaper of Time itself.

No one else seemed to have noticed. No one else, in fact, seemed alive. Esk was surrounded by people as still and silent as statues.

And they weren’t alone. There were other-Things-behind them, and more were appearing all the time. They had no shape, or rather they seemed to be taking their shapes at random from a variety of creatures; they gave the impression that they had heard about arms and legs and jaws and claws and organs but didn’t really know how they all fitted together. Or didn’t care. Or were so hungry they hadn’t bothered to find out.

They made a sound like a swarm of flies.

They were the creatures out of her dreams, come to feed on magic. She knew they weren’t interested in her now, except in the nature of an after-dinner mint. Their whole concentration was focused on Simon, who was totally unaware of their presence.

Esk kicked him smartly on the ankle.

The cold desert vanished. The real world rushed back. Simon opened his eyes, smiled faintly, and gently fell backwards into Esk’s arms.

A buzz went up from the wizards, and several of them started to clap. No one seemed to have noticed anything odd, apart from the silver lights.

Cutangle shook himself, and raised a hand to quell the crowd.

“Quite—astonishing,” he said to Treatle. “You say he worked it out all by himself?”

“Indeed, lord.”

“No one helped him at all?”

“There was no one to help him,” said Treatle. “He was just wandering from village to village, doing small spells. But only if people paid him in books or paper.”

Cutangle nodded. “It was no illusion,” he said, “yet he didn’t use his hands. What was he saying to himself? Do you know?”

“He says it’s just words to make his mind work properly,” said Treatle, and shrugged. “I can’t understand half of what he says and that’s a fact. He says he’s having to invent words because there aren’t any for the things he’s doing.”

Cutangle glanced sideways at his fellow mages. They nodded.

“It will be an honour to admit him to the University,” he said. “Perhaps you would tell him so when he wakes up.”

He felt a tugging at his robe, and looked down.

“Excuse me,” said Esk.

“Hallo, young lady,” said Cutangle, in a sugarmouse voice. “Have you come to see your brother enter the University?”

“He’s not my brother,” said Esk. There were times when the world had seemed to be full of brothers, but this wasn’t one of them.

“Are you important?” she said.