Sourcery

Rincewind stared into Coin’s golden eyes, and then at his sock. He had pulled it on and off several times a year for years. It had darns he’d grown to know and lo— well, know. Some of them had whole families of darns of their own. There were a number of descriptions that could be applied to the sock, but slayer-of-cities wasn’t among them.

‘Not really,’ he said at last. ‘It sort of kills people but leaves buildings standing.’

Rincewind’s mind was operating at the speed of continental drift. Parts of it were telling him that he was confronting the sourcerer, but they were in direct conflict with other parts. Rincewind had heard quite a lot about the power of the sourcerer, the staff of the sourcerer, the wickedness of the sourcerer and so on. The only thing no one had mentioned was the age of the sourcerer.

He glanced towards the staff.

‘And what does that do?’ he said slowly.

And the staff said, You must kill this man.

The wizards, who had been cautiously struggling upright, flung themselves flat again.

The voice of the hat had been bad enough, but the voice of the staff was metallic and precise; it didn’t sound as though it was offering advice but simply stating the way the future had to be. It sounded quite impossible to ignore.

Coin half-raised his arm, and hesitated.

‘Why?’ he said.

You do not disobey me.

‘You don’t have to,’ said Rincewind hurriedly. ‘It’s only a thing.’

‘I do not see why I should hurt him,’ said Coin. ‘He looks so harmless. Like an angry rabbit.’

He defies us.

‘Not me,’ said Rincewind, thrusting the arm with the sock behind his back and trying to ignore the bit about the rabbit.

‘Why should I do everything you tell me?’ said Coin to the staff. ‘I always do everything you tell me, and it doesn’t help people at all.’

People must fear you. Have I taught you nothing?

‘But he looks so funny. He’s got a sock,’ said Coin.

He screamed, and his arm jerked oddly. Rincewind’s hair stood on end.

You will do as you are commanded.

‘I won’t.’

You know what happens to boys who are bad.

There was a crackle and a smell of scorched flesh. Coin dropped to his knees.

‘Here, hang on a minute—’ Rincewind began.

Coin opened his eyes. They were gold still, but flecked with brown.

Rincewind swung his sock around in a wide humming arc that connected with the staff halfway along its length. There was a brief explosion of brick dust and burnt wool and the staff spun out of the boy’s hand. Wizards scattered as it tumbled end over end across the floor.

It reached the parapet, bounced upwards and shot over the edge.

But, instead of falling, it steadied itself in the air, spun in its own length and sped back again trailing octarine sparks and making a noise like a buzzsaw.

Rincewind pushed the stunned boy behind him, threw away the ravaged sock and whipped his hat off, flailing wildly as the staff bored towards him. It caught him on the side of the head, delivering a shock that almost welded his teeth together and toppled him like a thin and ragged tree.

The staff turned again in mid-air, glowing red-hot now, and swept back for another and quite definitely final run.

Rincewind struggled up on his elbows and watched in horrified fascination as it swooped through the chilly air which, for some reason he didn’t understand, seemed to be full of snowflakes.

And became tinged with purple, blotched with blue. Time slowed and ground to a halt like an underwound phonograph.

Rincewind looked up at the tall black figure that had appeared a few feet away.

It was, of course, Death.

He turned his glowing eyesockets towards Rincewind and said, in a voice like the collapse of undersea chasms, GOOD AFTERNOON.

He turned away as if he had completed all necessary business for the time being, stared at the horizon for a while, and started to tap one foot idly. It sounded like a bagful of maracas.

‘Er,’ said Rincewind.

Death appeared to remember him. I’M SORRY? he said politely.

‘I always wondered how it was going to be,’ said Rincewind.

Death took an hourglass out from the mysterious folds of his ebony robes and peered at it.

DID YOU? he said, vaguely.

‘I suppose I can’t complain,’ said Rincewind virtuously. ‘I’ve had a good life. Well, quite good.’ He hesitated. ‘Well, not all that good. I suppose most people would call it pretty awful.’ He considered it further. ‘I would,’ he added, half to himself.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?

Rincewind was nonplussed. ‘Don’t you make an appearance when a wizard is about to die?’

OF COURSE. AND I MUST SAY YOU PEOPLE ARE GIVING ME A BUSY DAY.

‘How do you manage to be in so many places at the same time?’

GOOD ORGANISATION.

Time returned. The staff, which had been hanging in the air a few feet away from Rincewind, started to scream forward again.

And there was a metallic thud as Coin caught it one-handedly in mid-flight.