‘If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’ said Hakardly. ‘You’ve lost me there.’
Coin turned on his heel and strode back to his chair.
‘We can fear nothing,’ he said, and it sounded more like a command. ‘What of these Dungeon Dimensions? If they should trouble us, away with them! A true wizard will fear nothing! Nothing!’
He jerked to his feet again and strode to the simulacrum of the world. The image was perfect in every detail, down to a ghost of Great A’Tuin paddling slowly through the interstellar deeps a few inches above the floor.
Coin waved his hand through it disdainfully.
‘Ours is a world of magic,’ he said. ‘And what can be found in it that can stand against us?’
Hakardly thought that something was expected of him.
‘Absolutely no one,’ he said. ‘Except for the gods, of course.’
There was a dead silence.
‘The gods?’ said Coin quietly.
‘Well, yes. Certainly. We don’t challenge the gods. They do their job, we do ours. No sense in—’
‘Who rules the Disc? Wizards or gods?’
Hakardly thought quickly.
‘Oh, wizards. Of course. But, as it were, under the gods.’
When one accidentally puts one boot in a swamp it is quite unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as pushing down with the other boot and hearing that, too, disappear with a soft sucking noise. Hakardly pressed on.
‘You see, wizardry is more—’
‘Are we not more powerful than the gods, then?’ said Coin.
Some of the wizards at the back of the crowd began to shuffle their feet.
‘Well. Yes and no,’ said Hakardly, up to his knees in it now.
The truth was that wizards tended to be somewhat nervous about the gods. The beings who dwelt on Cori Celesti had never made their feelings plain on the subject of ceremonial magic, which after all had a certain godness about it, and wizards tended to avoid the whole subject. The trouble with gods was that if they didn’t like something they didn’t just drop hints, so common sense suggested that it was unwise to put the gods in a position where they had to decide.
‘There seems to be some uncertainty?’ said Coin.
‘If I may counsel—’ Hakardly began.
Coin waved a hand. The walls vanished. The wizards stood at the top of the tower of sourcery, and as one man their eyes turned to the distant pinnacle of Cori Celesti, home of the gods.
‘When you’ve beaten everyone else, there’s only the gods left to fight,’ said Coin. ‘Have any of you seen the gods?’
There was a chorus of hesitant denials.
‘I will show them to you.’
‘You’ve got room for another one in there, old son,’ said War.
Pestilence swayed unsteadily. ‘I’m sure we should be getting along,’ he muttered, without much conviction.
‘Oh, go on.’
‘Just a half, then. And then we really must be going.’
War slapped him on the back, and glared at Famine.
‘And we’d better have another fifteen bags of peanuts,’ he added.
‘Oook,’ the Librarian concluded.
‘Oh,’ said Rincewind. ‘It’s the staff that’s the problem, then.’
‘Oook.’
‘Hasn’t anyone tried to take it away from him?’
‘Oook.’
‘What happened to them, then?’
‘Eeek.’
Rincewind groaned.
The Librarian had put his candle out because the presence of the naked flame was unsettling the books, but now that Rincewind had grown accustomed to the dark, he realised it wasn’t dark at all. The soft octarine glow from the books filled the inside of the tower with something that, while it wasn’t exactly light, was a blackness you could see by. Now and again the ruffle of stiff pages floated down from the gloom.
‘So, basically, there’s no way our magic could defeat him, isn’t that right?’
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 towards 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.
‘O-kay,’ 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.{39}
‘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.