Sourcery

Expecting anything unprotected to survive in that would be like expecting snow on a supernova. Fortunately the Luggage didn’t know this, and slid through the maelstrom with raw magic crystallising on its lid and hinges. It was in a foul mood but, again, there was nothing very unusual about this, except that the crackling fury earthing itself spectacularly all over the Luggage in a multi-coloured corona gave it the appearance of an early and very angry amphibian crawling out of a burning swamp.

It was hot and stuffy inside the tower. There were no internal floors, just a series of walkways around the walls. They were lined with wizards, and the central space was a column of octarine light that creaked loudly as they poured their power into it. At its base stood Abrim, the octarine gems on the hat blazing so brightly that they looked more like holes cut through into a different universe where, in defiance of probability, they had come out inside a sun.

The vizier stood with his hands out, fingers splayed, eyes shut, mouth a thin line of concentration, balancing the forces. Usually a wizard could control power only to the extent of his own physical capability, but Abrim was learning fast.

You made yourself the pinch in the hourglass, the fulcrum on the balance, the roll around the sausage.

Do it right and you were the power, it was part of you and you were capable of—

Has it been pointed out that his feet were several inches off the ground? His feet were several inches off the ground.

Abrim was pulling together the potency for a spell that would soar away into the sky and beset the Ankh tower with a thousand screaming demons when there came a thunderous knock at the door.

There is a mantra to be said on these occasions. It doesn’t matter if the door is a tent flap, a scrap of hide on a wind-blown yurt, three inches of solid oak with great iron nails in or a rectangle of chipboard with mahogany veneer, a small light over it made of horrible bits of coloured glass and a bellpush that plays a choice of twenty popular melodies that no music lover would want to listen to even after five years’ sensory deprivation.

One wizard turned to another and duly said: ‘I wonder who that can be at this time of night?’

There was another series of thumps on the woodwork.

‘There can’t be anyone alive out there,’ said the other wizard, and he said it nervously, because if you ruled out the possibility of it being anyone alive that always left the suspicion that perhaps it was someone dead.

This time the banging rattled the hinges.

‘One of us had better go out,’ said the first wizard.

‘Good man.’

‘Ah. Oh. Right.’

He set off slowly down the short, arched passage.

‘I’ll just go and see who it is, then?’ he said.

‘First class.’

It was a strange figure that made its hesitant way to the door. Ordinary robes weren’t sufficient protection in the high-energy field inside the tower, and over his brocade and velvet the wizard wore a thick, padded overall stuffed with rowan shavings and embroidered with industrial-grade sigils. He’d affixed a smoked glass visor to his pointy hat and his gauntlets, which were extremely big, suggested that he was a wicket keeper in a game of cricket played at supersonic speeds. The actinic flashes and pulsations from the great work in the main hall cast harsh shadows around him as he fumbled for the bolts.

He pulled down the visor and opened the door a fraction.

‘We don’t want any—’ he began, and ought to have chosen his words better, because they were his epitaph.

It was some time before his colleague noticed his continued absence, and wandered down the passage to find him. The door had been thrown wide open, the thaumatic inferno outside roaring against the web of spells that held it in check. In fact the door hadn’t been pushed completely back; he pulled it aside to see why, and gave a little whimper.

There was a noise behind him. He turned around.

‘Wha—’ he began, which is a pretty poor syllable on which to end a life.

———

High over the Circle Sea Rincewind was feeling a bit of an idiot.

This happens to everyone sooner or later.

For example, in a tavern someone jogs your elbow and you turn around quickly and give a mouthful of abuse to, you become slowly aware, the belt buckle of a man who, it turns out, was probably hewn rather than born.

Or a little car runs into the back of yours and you rush out to show a bunch of fives to the driver who, it becomes apparent as he goes on unfolding more body like some horrible conjuring trick, must have been sitting on the back seat.

Or you might be leading your mutinous colleagues to the captain’s cabin and you hammer on the door and he sticks his great head out with a cutlass in either hand and you say ‘We’re taking over the ship, you scum, and the lads are right with me!’ and he says ‘What lads?’ and you suddenly feel a great emptiness behind you and you say ‘Um…’