Sourcery - Terry Pratchett [93]
The Librarian oooked disconsolate agreement and continued to spin around gently on his bottom.
“Pretty pointless, then. It may have struck you that I am not exactly gifted in the magical department. I mean, any duel is going to go on the lines of ‘Hallo, I’m Rincewind’ closely followed by bazaam!”
“Oook.”
“Basically, what you’re saying is that I’m on my own.”
“Oook.”
“Thanks.”
By their own faint glow Rincewind regarded the books that had stacked themselves around the inner walls of the ancient tower.
He sighed and marched briskly to the door, but slowed down noticeably as he reached it.
“I’ll be off, then,” he said.
“Oook.”
“To face who knows what dreadful perils,” Rincewind added. “To lay down my life in the service of mankind—”
“Eeek.”
“All right, bipeds—”
“Woof.”
“—and quadrapeds, all right.” He glanced at the Patrician’s jamjar, a beaten man.
“And lizards,” he added. “Can I go now?”
A gale was howling down out of a clear sky as Rincewind toiled toward the tower of sourcery. Its high white doors were shut so tightly it was barely possible to see their outline in the milky surface of the stone.
He hammered on it for a bit, but nothing much happened. The doors seemed to absorb the sound.
“Fine thing,” he muttered to himself, and remembered the carpet. It was lying where he had left it, which was another sign that Ankh had changed. In the thieving days before the sourcerer nothing stayed for long where you left it. Nothing printable, anyway.
He rolled it out on the cobbles so that the golden dragons writhed against the blue ground, unless of course the blue dragons were flying against a golden sky.
He sat down.
He stood up.
He sat down again and hitched up his robe and, with some effort, unrolled one of his socks. Then he replaced his boot and wandered around for a bit until he found, among the rubble, a half-brick. He inserted the half-brick into the sock and gave the sock a few thoughtful swings.
Rincewind had grown up in Morpork. What a Morpork citizen liked to have on his side in a fight was odds of about twenty to one, but failing that a sockful of half-brick and a dark alley to lurk in was generally considered a better bet than any two magic swords you cared to name.
He sat down again.
“Up,” he commanded.
The carpet did not respond. Rincewind peered at the pattern, then lifted a corner of the carpet and tried to make out if the underside was any better.
“All right,” he conceded, “down. Very, very carefully. Down.”
“Sheep,” slurred War. “It was sheep.” His helmeted head hit the bar with a clang. He raised it again. “Sheep.”
“Nonono,” said Famine, raising a thin finger unsteadily. “Some other domess…dummist…tame animal. Like pig. Heifer. Kitten? Like that. Not sheep.”
“Bees,” said Pestilence, and slid gently out of his seat.
“Okay,” said War, ignoring him, “right. Once again, then. From the top.” He rapped the side of his glass for the note.
“We are poor little…unidentified domesticated animals…that have lost our way…” he quavered.
“Baabaabaa,” muttered Pestilence, from the floor.
War shook his head. “It isn’t the same, you know,” he said. “Not without him. He used to come in beautifully on the bass.”
“Baabaabaa,” Pestilence repeated.
“Oh, shut up,” said War, and reached uncertainly for a bottle.
The gale buffeted the top of the tower, a hot, unpleasant wind that whispered with strange voices and rubbed the skin like fine sandpaper.
In the center of it Coin stood with the staff over his head. As dust filled the air the wizards saw the lines of magic force pouring from it.
They curved up to form a vast bubble that expanded until it must have been larger than the city. And shapes appeared in it. They were shifting and indistinct, wavering horribly like visions in a distorting mirror, no more substantial than smoke rings or pictures in the clouds, but they were dreadfully familiar.
There, for a moment, was the fanged snout of Offler. There, clear for an instant in the writhing storm, was Blind Io, chief of the gods, with his orbiting