Sourcery

The staff uttered a noise like a thousand fingernails dragging across glass. It thrashed wildly up and down, flailing at the arm that held it, and bloomed into evil green flame along its entire length.

So. At the last, you fail me.

Coin groaned but held on as the metal under his fingertips went red, then white.

He thrust the arm out in front of him, and the force streaming from the staff roared past him and drew sparks from his hair and whipped his robe up into weird and unpleasant shapes. He screamed and whirled the staff round and smashed it on the parapet, leaving a long bubbling line in the stone.

Then he threw it away. It clattered against the stones and rolled to a halt, wizards scattering out of its path.

Coin sagged to his knees, shaking.

‘I don’t like killing people,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it can’t be right.’

‘Hold on to that thought,’ said Rincewind fervently.

‘What happens to people after they’re dead?’ said Coin.

Rincewind glanced up at Death.

‘I think this one’s for you,’ he said.

HE CANNOT SEE OR HEAR ME, said Death, UNTIL HE WANTS TO.

There was a little clinking noise. The staff was rolling back towards Coin, who looked down at it in horror.

Pick me up.

‘You don’t have to,’ said Rincewind again.

You cannot resist me. You cannot defeat yourself, said the staff. Coin reached out very slowly, and picked it up. Rincewind glanced at his sock. It was a stub of burnt wool, its brief career as a weapon of war having sent it beyond the help of any darning needle.

Now kill him.

Rincewind held his breath. The watching wizards held their breath. Even Death, who had nothing to hold but his scythe, held it tensely.

‘No,’ said Coin.

You know what happens to boys who are bad.

Rincewind saw the sourcerer’s face go pale. The staff’s voice changed. Now it wheedled.

Without me, who would there be to tell you what to do?

‘That is true,’ said Coin slowly.

See what you have achieved.

Coin stared slowly around at the frightened faces. ‘I am seeing,’ he said.

I taught you everything I know.

‘I am thinking,’ said Coin, ‘that you do not know enough.’

Ingrate! Who gave you your destiny?

‘You did,’ said the boy. He raised his head.

‘I realise that I was wrong,’ he added, quietly.

Good—

‘I did not throw you far enough!’

Coin got to his feet in one movement and swung the staff over his head. He stood still as a statue, his hand lost in a ball of light that was the colour of molten copper. It turned green, ascended through shades of blue, hovered in the violet and then seared into pure octarine.

Rincewind shaded his eyes against the glare and saw Coin’s hand, still whole, still gripping tight, with beads of molten metal glittering between his fingers.

He slithered away, and bumped into Hakardly. The old wizard was standing like a statue, with his mouth open.

‘What’ll happen?’ said Rincewind.

‘He’ll never beat it,’ said Hakardly hoarsely. ‘It’s his. It’s as strong as him. He’s got the power, but it knows how to channel it.’

‘You mean they’ll cancel each other out?’

‘Hopefully.’

The battle was hidden in its own infernal glow. Then the floor began to tremble.

‘They’re drawing on everything magical,’ said Hakardly. ‘We’d better leave the tower.’

‘Why?’

‘I imagine it will vanish soon enough.’

And, indeed, the white flagstones around the glow looked as though they were unravelling and disappearing into it.

Rincewind hesitated.

‘Aren’t we going to help him?’ he said.

Hakardly stared at him, and then at the iridescent tableau. His mouth opened and shut once or twice.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Yes, but just a bit of help on his side, you’ve seen what that thing is like—’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘He helped you.’ Rincewind turned on the other wizards, who were scurrying away. ‘All of you. He gave you what you wanted, didn’t he?’

‘We may never forgive him,’ said Hakardly.

Rincewind groaned.

‘What will be left when it’s all over?’ he said. ‘What will be left?’

Hakardly looked down.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

The octarine light had grown brighter and was beginning to turn black around the edge. It wasn’t the black that is merely the opposite of light, though; it was the grainy, shifting blackness that glows beyond the glare and has no business in any decent reality. And it buzzed.

Rincewind did a little dance of uncertainty as his feet, legs, instincts and incredibly well-developed sense of self-preservation overloaded his nervous system to the point where, just as it was on the point of fusing, his conscience finally got its way.

He leapt into the fire and reached the staff.

The wizards fled. Several of them levitated down from the tower.

They were a lot more perspicacious than those that used the stairs because, about thirty seconds later, the tower vanished.