Sourcery

‘…and …and …when you went to the window,’ Nijel’s mouth, lacking any further input from his brain, ran down.

Moving, jostling ice packed the plain, roaring forward under a great cloud of clammy steam. The ground shook as the leaders passed below, and it was obvious to the onlookers that whoever was going to stop this would need more than a couple of pounds of rock salt and a shovel.

‘Go on, then,’ said Conina, ‘explain. I think you’d better shout.’

Nijel looked distractedly at the herd.

‘I think I can see some figures,’ said Creosote helpfully. ‘Look, on top of the leading … things.’

Nijel peered through the snow. There were indeed beings moving around on the backs of the glaciers. They were human, or humanoid, or at least humanish. They didn’t look very big.

That turned out to be because the glaciers themselves were very big, and Nijel wasn’t very good at perspective. As the horses flew lower over the leading glacier, a huge bull heavily crevassed and scarred by moraine, it became apparent that one reason why the Ice Giants were known as the Ice Giants was because they were, well, giants.

The other was that they were made of ice.

A figure the size of a large house was crouched at the crest of the bull, urging it to greater efforts by means of a spike on a long pole. It was craggy, in fact it was more nearly faceted, and glinted green and blue in the light; there was a thin band of silver in its snowy locks, and its eyes were tiny and black and deep set, like lumps of coal.[24]

There was a splintering crash ahead as the leading glaciers smacked into a forest. Birds rattled up in panic. Snow and splinters rained down around Nijel as he galloped on their air alongside the giant.

He cleared his throat.

‘Erm,’ he said, ‘excuse me?’

Ahead of the boiling surf of earth, snow and smashed timber a herd of caribou was running in blind panic, their rear hooves a few feet from the tumbling mess.

Nijel tried again.

‘I say?’ he shouted.

The giant’s head turned towards him.

‘Vot you vant?’ it said. ‘Go avay, hot person.’

‘Sorry, but is this really necessary?’

The giant looked at him in frozen astonishment. It turned around slowly and regarded the rest of the herd, which seemed to stretch all the way to the Hub. It looked at Nijel again.

‘Yarss,’ it said, ‘I tink so. Othervise, why ve do it?’

‘Only there’s a lot of people out there who would prefer you not to, you see,’ said Nijel, desperately. A rock spire loomed briefly ahead of the glacier, rocked for a second and then vanished.

He added, ‘Also children and small furry animals.’

‘They vill suffer in the cause of progress. Now is the time ve reclaim the vorld,’ rumbled the giant. ‘Whole vorld of ice. According to inevitability of history and triumph of thermo-dynamics.’

‘Yes, but you don’t have to,’ said Nijel.

‘Ve vant to,’ said the giant. ‘The gods are gone, ve throw off shackles of outmoded superstition.’

‘Freezing the whole world solid doesn’t sound very progressive to me,’ said Nijel.

‘Ve like it.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Nijel, in the maniacally glazed tones of one who is trying to see all sides of the issue and is certain that a solution will be found if people of good will will only sit around a table and discuss things rationally like sensible human beings. ‘But is this the right time? Is the world ready for the triumph of ice?’

‘It bloody vell better be,’ said the giant, and swung his glacier prod at Nijel. It missed the horse but caught him full in the chest, lifting him clean out of the saddle and flicking him on to the glacier itself. He spun, spreadeagled, down its freezing flanks, was carried some way by the boil of debris, and rolled into the slush of ice and mud between the speeding walls.

He staggered to his feet, and peered hopelessly into the freezing fog. Another glacier bore down directly on him.

So did Conina. She leaned over as her horse swept down out of the fog, caught Nijel by his leather barbarian harness, and swung him up in front of her.

As they rose again he wheezed, ‘Cold-hearted bastard. I really thought I was getting somewhere for a moment there. You just can’t talk to some people.’

The herd breasted another hill, scraping off quite a lot of it, and the Sto Plain, studded with cities, lay helpless before it.

———

Rincewind sidled towards the nearest Thing, holding Coin with one hand and swinging the loaded sock in the other.

‘No magic, right?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said the boy.

‘Whatever happens, you mustn’t use magic?’

‘That’s it. Not here. They haven’t got much power here, if you don’t use magic. Once they break through, though …’

His voice trailed away.

‘Pretty awful,’ Rincewind nodded.

‘Terrible,’ said Coin.

Rincewind sighed. He wished he still had his hat. He’d just have to do without it.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘When I shout, you make a run for the light. Do you understand? No looking back or anything. No matter what happens.’

‘No matter what?’ said Coin uncertainly.

‘No matter what.’ Rincewind gave a brave little smile. ‘Especially no matter what you hear.’