Sourcery - Страница 49

Rincewind would have been vaguely satisfied to know that they were geas.

———

Custom was slow in the Mended Drum. The troll chained to the doorpost sat in the shade and reflectively picked someone out of his teeth.

Creosote was singing softly to himself. He had discovered beer and wasn’t having to pay for it, because the coinage of compliments – rarely employed by the swains of Ankh – was having an astonishing effect on the landlord’s daughter. She was a large, good-natured girl, with a figure that was the colour and, not to put too fine a point on it, the same shape as unbaked bread. She was intrigued. No one had ever referred to her breasts as jewelled melons before.

‘Absolutely,’ said the Seriph, sliding peacefully off his bench, ‘no doubt about it.’ Either the big yellow sort or the small green ones with huge warty veins, he told himself virtuously.

‘And what was that about my hair?’ she said encouragingly, hauling him back and refilling his glass.

‘Oh.’ The Seriph’s brow wrinkled. ‘Like a goat of flocks that grazes on the slopes of Mount Wossname, and no mistake. And as for your ears,’ he added quickly, ‘no pink-hued shells that grace the sea-kissed sands of—’

‘Exactly how like a flock of goats?’ she said.

The Seriph hesitated. He’d always considered it one of his best lines. Now it was meeting Ankh-Morpork’s famous literal-mindedness head-on for the first time. Strangely enough, he felt rather impressed.

‘I mean, in size, shape or smell?’ she went on.

‘I think,’ said the Seriph, ‘that perhaps the phrase I had in mind was exactly not like a flog of gits.’

‘Ah?’ The girl pulled the flagon towards her.

‘And I think perhaps I would like another drink,’ he said indistinctly, ‘and then – and then—’ He looked sideways at the girl, and took the plunge. ‘Are you much of a raconteur?’

‘What?’

He licked his suddenly dry lips. ‘I mean, do you know many stories?’ he croaked.

‘Oh, yes. Lots.’

‘Lots?’ whispered Creosote. Most of his concubines only knew the same old one or two.

‘Hundreds. Why, do you want to hear one?’

‘What, now?’

‘If you like. It’s not very busy in here.’

Perhaps I did die, Creosote thought. Perhaps this is Paradise. He took her hands. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s ages since I’ve had a good narrative. But I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.’

She patted his arm. What a nice old gentleman, she thought. Compared to some we get in here.

‘There’s one my granny used to tell me. I know it backwards,’ she said.

Creosote sipped his beer and watched the wall in a warm glow. Hundreds, he thought. And she knows some of them backwards.

She cleared her throat, and said, in a sing-song voice that made Creosote’s pulse fuse. ‘There was a man and he had eight sons—’

———

The Patrician sat by his window, writing. His mind was full of fluff as far as the last week or two was concerned, and he didn’t like that much.

A servant had lit a lamp to dispel the twilight, and a few early evening moths were orbiting it. The Patrician watched them carefully. For some reason he felt very uneasy in the presence of glass but that, as he stared fixedly at the insects, wasn’t what bothered him most.

What bothered him was that he was fighting a terrible urge to catch them with his tongue.

And Wuffles lay on his back at his master’s feet, and barked in his dreams.

———

Lights were going on all over the city, but the last few strands of sunset illuminated the gargoyles as they helped one another up the long climb to the roof.

The Librarian watched them from the open door, while giving himself a philosophic scratch. Then he turned and shut out the night.

It was warm in the Library. It was always warm in the Library, because the scatter of magic that produced the glow also gently cooked the air.

The Librarian looked at his charges approvingly, made his last rounds of the slumbering shelves, and then dragged his blanket underneath his desk, ate a goodnight banana, and fell asleep.

Silence gradually reclaimed the Library. Silence drifted around the remains of a hat, heavily battered and frayed and charred around the edges, that had been placed with some ceremony in a niche in the wall. No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat.

Silence filled the University in the same way that air fills a hole. Night spread across the Disc like plum jam, or possibly blackberry preserve.

But there would be a morning. There would always be another morning.

THE END

About the Author

Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first title of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he is the author of over fifty bestselling books. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Worldwide sales of his books now stand at 70 million, and they have been translated into thirty-seven languages.

Introducing Discworld

The Discworld Series is a continuous history of a world not totally unlike our own except that it is a flat disc carried on the backs of four elephants astride a giant turtle floating through space, and that it is peopled by, among others, wizards, dwarves, policemen, thieves, beggars, vampires and witches. Within the history of Discworld there are many individual stories, which can be read in any order, but reading them in sequence can increase your enjoyment through the accumulation of all the fine detail that contributes to the teeming imaginative complexity of this brilliantly conceived world.

Also by Terry Pratchett

The Discworld series

1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

3. EQUAL RITES

4. MORT

5. SOURCERY

6. WYRD SISTERS

7. PYRAMIDS

8. GUARDS! GUARDS!

9. ERIC

10. MOVING PICTURES (illustrated by Josh Kirby)

11. REAPER MAN

12. WITCHES ABROAD

13. SMALL GODS

14. LORDS AND LADIES

15. MEN AT ARMS

16. SOUL MUSIC

17. INTERESTING TIMES

18. MASKERADE

19. FEET OF CLAY

20. HOGFATHER

21. JINGO

22. THE LAST CONTINENT

23. CARPE JUGULUM

24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT

25. THE TRUTH

26. THIEF OF TIME

27. THE LAST HERO (illustrated by Paul Kidby)

28. THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS (for young adults)

29. NIGHT WATCH

30. THE WEE FREE MEN (for young adults)

31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT

32. A HAT FULL OF SKY (for young adults)

33. GOING POSTAL

34. THUD

35. WINTERSMITH (for young adults)

36. MAKING MONEY

37. UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

38. I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT (for young adults)

39. SNUFF

Other books about Discworld

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III: DARWIN’S WATCH (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

TURTLE RECALL: THE DISCWORLD COMPANION … SO FAR (with Stephen Briggs)

NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK (with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)

THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO (with Paul Kidby)

THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK (with Bernard Pearson)

THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK (with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)

WHERE’S MY COW? (illustrated by Melvyn Grant)

THE ART OF DISCWORLD (with Paul Kidby)

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD (compiled by Stephen Briggs)

THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD (with Jacqueline Simpson)

MISS FELICITY BEEDLE’S THE WORLD OF POO (with the Discworld Emporium)

Discworld maps

THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK (with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

THE DISCWORLD MAPP (with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE – A DISCWORLD MAPP (with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)

DEATH’S DOMAIN (with Paul Kidby)

THE COMPLETE ANKH-MORPORK (with the Discworld Emporium)

A complete list of Terry Pratchett ebooks and audio books as well as other books based on the Discworld series – illustrated screenplays, graphic novels, comics and plays – can be found on

Non-Discworld books

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN

STRATA

THE UNADULTERATED CAT (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)

GOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)

THE LONG EARTH (with Stephen Baxter)

Non-Discworld novels for young adults

THE CARPET PEOPLE

TRUCKERS

DIGGERS

WINGS

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND (see )

JOHNNY AND THE DEAD

JOHNNY AND THE BOMB

NATION

DODGER

notes

1

Like rhinestones, but different river. When it comes to glittering objects, wizards have all the taste and self-control of a deranged magpie.

2

A magical accident in the Library, which as has already been indicated is not a place for your average rubber-stamp-and-Dewey-decimal employment, had some time ago turned the Librarian into an orang-utan. He had since resisted all efforts to turn him back. He liked the handy long arms, the prehensile toes and the right to scratch himself in public, but most of all he liked the way all the big questions of existence had suddenly resolved themselves into a vague interest in where his next banana was coming from. It wasn’t that he was unaware of the despair and nobility of the human condition. It was just that as far as he was concerned you could stuff it.