Sourcery - Страница 32

‘So perish all enemies,’ said Abrim.

He turned his face up to the heights of the tower.

‘I challenge,’ he said. ‘And those who will not face me must follow me, according to the Lore.’

There was a long, thick pause caused by a lot of people listening very hard. Eventually, from the top of the tower, a voice called out uncertainly, ‘Whereabouts in the Lore?’

‘I embody the Lore.’

There was a distant whispering and then the same voice called out, ‘The Lore is dead. Sourcery is above the Lo—’

The sentence ended in a scream because Abrim raised his left hand and sent a thin beam of green light in the precise direction of the speaker.

It was at about this moment that Rincewind realised that he could move his limbs himself. The hat had temporarily lost interest in them. He glanced sideways at Conina. In instant, unspoken agreement they each grasped one of Nijel’s arms and turned and ran, and didn’t stop until they’d put several walls between them and the tower. Rincewind ran expecting something to hit him in the back of the neck. Possibly the world.

All three landed in the rubble and lay there panting.

‘You needn’t have done that,’ muttered Nijel. ‘I was just getting ready to really give him a seeing-to. How can I ever—’

There was an explosion behind them and shafts of multi-coloured fire screamed overhead, striking sparks off the masonry. Then there was a sound like an enormous cork being pulled out of a small bottle, and a peal of laughter that, somehow, wasn’t very amusing. The ground shook.

‘What’s going on?’ said Conina.

‘Magical war,’ said Rincewind.

‘Is that good?’

‘No.’

‘But surely you want wizardry to triumph?’ said Nijel.

Rincewind shrugged, and ducked as something unseen and big whirred overhead making a noise like a partridge.

‘I’ve never seen wizards fight,’ said Nijel. He started to scramble up the rubble and screamed as Conina grabbed him by the leg.

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she said. ‘Rincewind?’

The wizard shook his head gloomily, and picked up a pebble. He tossed it up above the ruined wall, where it turned into a small blue teapot. It smashed when it hit the ground.

‘The spells react with one another,’ he said. ‘There’s no telling what they’ll do.’

‘But we’re safe behind this wall?’ said Conina.

Rincewind brightened a bit. ‘Are we?’ he said.

‘I was asking you.’

‘Oh. No. I shouldn’t think so. It’s just ordinary stone. The right spell and … phooey.’

‘Phooey?’

‘Right.’

‘Shall we run away again?’

‘It’s worth a try.’

They made it to another upright wall a few seconds before a randomly spitting ball of yellow fire landed where they had been lying and turned the ground into something awful. The whole area around the tower was a tornado of sparkling air.

‘We need a plan,’ said Nijel.

‘We could try running again,’ said Rincewind.

‘That doesn’t solve anything!’

‘Solves most things,’ said Rincewind.

‘How far do we have to go to be safe?’ said Conina.

Rincewind risked a look around the wall.

‘Interesting philosophical question,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a long way, and I’ve never been safe.’

Conina sighed and stared at a pile of rubble nearby. She stared at it again. There was something odd there, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

‘I could rush at them,’ said Nijel, vaguely. He stared yearningly at Conina’s back.

‘Wouldn’t work,’ said Rincewind. ‘Nothing works against magic. Except stronger magic. And then the only thing that beats stronger magic is even stronger magic. And next thing you know…’

‘Phooey?’ suggested Nijel.

‘It happened before,’ said Rincewind. ‘Went on for thousands of years until not a—’

‘Do you know what’s odd about that heap of stone?’ said Conina.

Rincewind glanced at it. He screwed up his eyes.

‘What, apart from the legs?’ he said.

It took several minutes to dig the Seriph out. He was still clutching a wine bottle, which was almost empty, and blinked at them all in vague recognition.

‘Powerful,’ he said, and then after some effort added, ‘stuff, this vintage. Felt,’ he continued, ‘as though the place fell on me.’

‘It did,’ said Rincewind.

‘Ah. That would be it, then.’ Creosote focused on Conina, after several attempts, and rocked backwards. ‘My word,’ he said, ‘the young lady again. Very impressive.’

‘I say—’ Nijel began.

‘Your hair,’ said the Seriph, rocking slowly forward again, ‘is like, is like a flock of goats that graze upon the side of Mount Gebra.’

‘Look here—’

‘Your breasts are like, like,’ the Seriph swayed sideways a little, and gave a brief, sorrowful glance at the empty bottle, ‘are like the jewelled melons in the fabled gardens of dawn.’

Conina’s eyes widened. ‘They are?’ she said.

‘No,’ said the Seriph, ‘doubt about it. I know jewelled melons when I see them. As the white does in the meadows of the water margin are your thighs, which—’

‘Erm, excuse me—’ said Nijel, clearing his throat with malice aforethought.

Creosote swayed in his direction.

‘Hmm?’ he said.

‘Where I come from,’ said Nijel stonily, ‘we don’t talk to ladies like that.’

Conina sighed as Nijel shuffled protectively in front of her. It was, she reflected, absolutely true.

‘In fact,’ he went on, sticking out his jaw as far as possible, which still made it appear like a dimple, ‘I’ve a jolly good mind—’

‘Open to debate,’ said Rincewind, stepping forward. ‘Er, sir, sire, we need to get out. I suppose you wouldn’t know the way?’

‘Thousands of rooms,’ said the Seriph, ‘in here, you know. Not been out in years.’ He hiccuped. ‘Decades. Ians. Never been out, in fact.’ His face glazed over in the act of composition. ‘The bird of Time has but, um, a little way to walk and lo! the bird is on its feet.’

‘It’s a geas,’ muttered Rincewind.

Creosote swayed at him. ‘Abrim does all the ruling, you see. Terrible hard work.’

‘He’s not,’ said Rincewind, ‘making a very good job of it just at present.’

‘And we’d sort of like to get away,’ said Conina, who was still turning over the phrase about the goats.

‘And I’ve got this geas,’ said Nijel, glaring at Rincewind.

Creosote patted him on the arm.

‘That’s nice,’ he said. ‘Everyone should have a pet.’

‘So if you happen to know if you own any stables or anything…’ prompted Rincewind.

‘Hundreds,’ said Creosote. ‘I own some of the finest, most … finest horses in the world.’ His brow wrinkled. ‘So they tell me.’

‘But you wouldn’t happen to know where they are?’

‘Not as such,’ the Seriph admitted. A random spray of magic turned the nearby wall into arsenic meringue.

‘I think we might have been better off in the snake pit,’ said Rincewind, turning away.

Creosote took another sorrowful glance at his empty wine bottle.

‘I know where there’s a magic carpet,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Rincewind, raising his hands protectively. ‘Absolutely not. Don’t even—’

‘It belonged to my grandfather—’

‘A real magic carpet?’ said Nijel.

‘Listen,’ said Rincewind urgently. ‘I get vertigo just listening to tall stories.’

‘Oh, quite,’ the Seriph burped gently, ‘genuine. Very pretty pattern.’ He squinted at the bottle again, and sighed. ‘It was a lovely blue colour,’ he added.

‘And you wouldn’t happen to know where it is?’ said Conina slowly, in the manner of one creeping up very carefully to a wild animal that might take fright at any moment.

‘In the treasury. I know the way there. I’m extremely rich, you know. Or so they tell me.’ He lowered his voice and tried to wink at Conina, eventually managing it with both eyes. ‘We could sit on it,’ he said, breaking into a sweat. ‘And you could tell me a story …’

Rincewind tried to scream through gritted teeth. His ankles were already beginning to sweat.

‘I’m not going to ride on a magic carpet!’ he hissed. ‘I’m afraid of grounds!’

‘You mean heights,’ said Conina. ‘And stop being silly.’

‘I know what I mean! It’s the grounds that kill you!’

———

The battle of Al Khali was a hammer-headed cloud, in whose roiling depths weird shapes could be heard and strange sounds were seen. Occasionally misses seared across the city. Where they landed things were … different.

For example, a large part of the soak had turned into an impenetrable forest of giant yellow mushrooms. No one knew what effect this had on its inhabitants, although possibly they hadn’t noticed.

The temple of Offler the Crocodile God, patron deity of the city, was now a rather ugly sugary thing constructed in five dimensions. But this was no problem because it was being eaten by a herd of giant ants.

On the other hand, not many people were left to appreciate this statement against uncontrolled civic alteration, because most of them were running for their lives. They fled across the fertile fields in a steady stream. Some had taken to boats, but this method of escape had ceased when most of the harbour area turned into a swamp in which, for no obvious reason, a couple of small pink elephants were building a nest.