The Light Fantastic (3 page)

To his intense relief it gave a sort of wooden shrug, and set off through the trees at a canter.

With superhuman effort the shaman recalled the correct sequence of movements for standing up and even managed a couple of steps before he looked down and gave up, having run out of legs.

Rincewind, meanwhile, had found a path. It wound about a good deal, and he would have been happier if it had been cobbled, but following it gave him something to do.

Several trees tried to strike up a conversation, but Rincewind was nearly certain that this was not normal behavior for trees and ignored them.

The day lengthened. There was no sound but the murmur of nasty little stinging insects, the occasional crack of a falling branch, and the whispering of the trees discussing religion and the trouble with squirrels. Rincewind began to feel very lonely. He imagined himself living in the woods forever, sleeping on leaves and eating…and eating…whatever there was to eat in woods. Trees, he supposed, and nuts and berries. He would have to…

“Rincewind!”

There, coming up the path, was Twoflower—dripping wet, but beaming with delight. The Luggage trotted along behind him (anything made of the wood would follow its owner anywhere and it was often used to make luggage for the grave goods of very rich dead kings who wanted to be sure of starting a new life in the next world with clean underwear).

Rincewind sighed. Up to now, he’d thought the day couldn’t possibly get worse.

It began to rain a particularly wet and cold rain. Rincewind and Twoflower sat under a tree and watched it.

“Rincewind?”

“Um?”

“Why are we here?”

“Well, some say that the Creator of the Universe made the Disc and everything on it, others say that its all a very complicated story involving the testicles of the Sky God and the milk of the Celestial Cow, and some even hold that we’re all just due to the total random accretion of probability particles. But if you mean why are we here as opposed to falling off the Disc, I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s probably all some ghastly mistake.”

“Oh. Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?”

“Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us.”

“I’ve got some acorns, if you like,” said the tree helpfully.

They sat in damp silence for some moments.

“Rincewind, the tree said—”

“Trees can’t talk,” snapped Rincewind. “It’s very important to remember that.”

“But you just heard—”

Rincewind sighed. “Look,” he said. “It’s all down to simple biology, isn’t it? If you’re going to talk you need the right equipment, like lungs and lips and, and—”

“Vocal cords,” said the tree.

“Yeah, them,” said Rincewind. He shut up and stared gloomily at the rain.

“
I
thought wizards knew all about trees and wild food and things,” said Twoflower reproachfully. It was very seldom that anything in his voice suggested that he thought of Rincewind as anything other than a magnificent enchanter, and the wizard was stung into action.

“I do, I do,” he snapped.

“Well, what kind of tree is this?” said the tourist. Rincewind looked up.

“Beech,” he said firmly.

“Actually—” began the tree, and shut up quickly. It had caught Rincewind’s look.

“Those things up there look like acorns,” said Twoflower.

“Yes, well, this is the sessile or heptocarpic variety,” said Rincewind. “The nuts look very much like acorns, in fact. They can fool practically anybody.”

“Gosh,” said Twoflower, and, “What’s that bush over there, then?”

“Mistletoe.”

“But it’s got thorns and red berries!”

“Well?” said Rincewind sternly, and stared hard at him. Twoflower broke first.

“Nothing,” he said meekly. “I must have been misinformed.”

“Right.”

“But there’s some big mushrooms under it. Can you eat them?”

Rincewind looked at them cautiously. They were, indeed, very big, and had red and white spotted caps. They were in fact a variety that the local shaman (who at this point was some miles away, making friends with a rock) would only eat after first attaching one leg to a large stone with a rope. There was nothing for it but to go out in the rain and look at them.

He knelt down in the leafmold and peered under the cap. After a while he said weakly, “No, no good to eat at all.”

“Why?” called Twoflower. “Are the gills the wrong shade of yellow?”

“No, not really…”

“I expect the stems haven’t got the right kind of fluting, then.”

“They look okay, actually.”

“The cap, then, I expect the cap is the wrong color,” said Twoflower.

“Not sure about that.”

“Well then, why can’t you eat them?”

Rincewind coughed. “It’s the little doors and windows,” he said wretchedly, “it’s a dead giveaway.”

Thunder rolled across Unseen University. Rain poured over its roofs and gurgled out of its gargoyles, although one or two of the more cunning ones had scuttled off to shelter among the maze of tiles.

Far below, in the Great Hall, the eight most powerful wizards on the Discworld gathered at the angles of a ceremonial octogram. Actually they probably weren’t the most powerful, if the truth were known, but they certainly had great powers of survival which, in the highly competitive world of magic, was pretty much the same thing. Behind every wizard of the eighth rank were half a dozen seventh rank wizards trying to bump him off, and senior wizards had to develop an inquiring attitude to, for example, scorpions in their bed. An ancient proverb summed it up: When a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.

The oldest wizard, Greyhald Spold of the Ancient and Truly Original Sages of the Unbroken Circle, leaned heavily on his carven staff and spake thusly:

“Get on with it, Weatherwax, my feet are giving me gyp.”

Galder, who had merely paused for effect, glared at him.

“Very well, then, I will be brief—”

“Jolly good.”

“We all sought guidance as to the events of this morning. Can anyone among us say he received it?”

The wizards looked sidelong at one another. Nowhere outside a trades union conference fraternal benefit night can so much mutual distrust and suspicion be found as among a gathering of senior enchanters. But the plain fact was that the day had gone very badly. Normally informative demons, summoned abruptly from the Dungeon Dimensions, had looked sheepish and sidled away when questioned. Magic mirrors had cracked. Tarot cards had mysteriously become blank. Crystal balls had gone all cloudy. Even tea leaves, normally scorned by wizards as frivolous and unworthy of contemplation, had clustered together at the bottom of cups and refused to move.

In short, the assembled wizards were at a loss. There was a general murmur of agreement.

“And therefore I propose that we perform the Rite of AshkEnte,” said Galder dramatically.

He had to admit that he had hoped for a better response, something on the lines of, well, “No, not the Rite of AshkEnte! Man was not meant to meddle with such things!”

In fact there was a general mutter of approval.

“Good idea.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“Get on with it, then.”

Slightly put out, he summoned a procession of lesser wizards who carried various magical implements into the hall.

It has already been hinted that around this time there was some disagreement among the fraternity of wizards about how to practice magic.

Younger wizards in particular went about saying that it was time that magic started to update its image and that they should all stop mucking about with bits of wax and bone and put the whole thing on a properly organized basis, with research programs and three-day conventions in good hotels where they could read papers with titles like “Whither Geomancy?” and “The Role of Seven-League Boots in a Caring Society.”

Trymon, for example, hardly ever did any magic these days but ran the Order with hourglass efficiency and wrote lots of memos and had a big chart on his office wall, covered with colored blobs and flags and lines that no one else really understood but which looked very impressive.

The other type of wizard thought all this was so much marsh gas and wouldn’t have anything to do with an image unless it was made of wax and had pins stuck in it.

The heads of the eight orders were all of this persuasion, traditionalists to a mage, and the utensils that were heaped around the octogram had a definite, no-nonsense occult look about them. Rams horns, skulls, baroque metalwork and heavy candles were much in evidence, despite the discovery by younger wizards that the Rite of AshkEnte could perfectly well be performed with three small bits of wood and 4 cc of mouse blood.

The preparations normally took several hours, but the combined powers of the senior wizards shortened it considerably and, after a mere forty minutes, Galder chanted the final words of the spell. They hung in front of him for a moment before dissolving.

The air in the center of the octogram shimmered and thickened, and suddenly contained a tall, dark figure. Most of it was hidden by a black robe and hood and this was probably just as well. It held a long scythe in one hand and one couldn’t help noticing that what should have been fingers were simply white bone.

The other skeletal hand held small cubes of cheese and pineapple on a stick.

“W
ELL
?” said Death, in a voice with all the warmth and color of an iceberg. He caught the wizards’ gaze, and glanced down at the stick.

I
WAS AT A PARTY
, he added, a shade reproachfully.

“O Creature of Earth and Darkness, we do charge thee to abjure from—” began Galder in a firm, commanding voice. Death nodded.

Y
ES, YES
, I
KNOW ALL THAT
, he said. W
HY HAVE YOU SUMMONED ME
?

“It is said that you can see both the past and future, said Galder a little sulkily, because the big speech of binding and conjuration was one he rather liked and people had said he was very good at it.

T
HAT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT
.

“Then perhaps you can tell us what exactly it was that happened this morning?” said Galder. He pulled himself together, and added loudly, “I command this by Azimrothe, by T’chikel, by—”

A
LL RIGHT, YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT
, said Death. W
HAT PRECISELY WAS IT YOU WISHED TO KNOW
? Q
UITE A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENED THIS MORNING, PEOPLE WERE BORN, PEOPLE DIED, ALL THE TREES GREW A BIT TALLER, RIPPLES MADE INTERESTING PATTERNS ON THE SEA
—

“I mean about the Octavo,” said Galder coldly.

T
HAT
? O
H, THAT WAS JUST A READJUSTMENT OF REALITY
. I
UNDERSTAND THE
O
CTAVO WAS ANXIOUS NOT TO LOSE THE EIGHTH SPELL
. I
T WAS DROPPING OFF THE
D
ISC, APPARENTLY
.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Galder. He scratched his chin. “Are we talking about the one inside the head of Rincewind? Tall thin man, bit scraggy? The one—”

—T
HAT HE HAS BEEN CARRYING AROUND ALL THESE YEARS, YES
.

Galder frowned. It seemed a lot of trouble to go to. Everyone knew that when a wizard died all the spells in his head would go free, so why bother to save Rincewind? The spell would just float back eventually.

“Any idea why?” he said without thinking and then, remembering himself in time, added hastily, “By Yrriph and Kcharla I do abjure thee and—”

I
WISH YOU WOULDN’T KEEP DOING THAT
, said Death, A
LL THAT
I
KNOW IS THAT ALL THE SPELLS HAVE TO BE SAID TOGETHER NEXT
H
OGSWATCHNIGHT OR THE DISC WILL BE DESTROYED
.

“Speak up there!” demanded Greyhald Spold.

“Shut up!” said Galder.

M
E
?

“No, him. Daft old—”

“I heard that!” snapped Spold, “You young people—” He stopped. Death was looking at him thoughtfully, as if he was trying to remember his face.

“Look,” said Galder, “just repeat that bit again, will you? The Disc will be what?”

D
ESTROYED
, said Death. C
AN
I
GO NOW
? I
LEFT MY DRINK
.

“Hang on,” said Galder hurriedly. “By Cheliliki and Orizone and so forth, what do you mean, destroyed?”

I
T’S AN ANCIENT PROPHECY WRITTEN ON THE INNER WALLS OF THE
G
REAT
P
YRAMID OF
T
SORT
. T
HE WORD “DESTROYED” SEEMS QUITE SELF-EXPLANTORY TO ME
.

“That’s all you can tell us?”

YES.

“But Hogswatchnight is only two months away!”

Y
ES
.

“At least you can tell us where Rincewind is now!”

Death shrugged. It was a gesture he was particularly well built for.

T
HE
F
OREST OF
S
KUND, RIMWARD OF THE
R
AMTOP
M
OUNTAINS
.

“What is he doing there?”

F
EELING VERY SORRY FOR HIMSELF
.

“Oh.”

N
OW MAY
I
GO
?

Galder nodded distractedly. He had been thinking wistfully of the banishment ritual, which started “Begone, foul shade” and had some rather impressive passages which he had been practicing, but somehow he couldn’t work up any enthusiasm.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Thank you, yes.” And then, because it’s as well not to make enemies even among the creatures of night, he added politely, “I hope it is a good party.”

Death didn’t answer. He was looking at Spold in the same way that a dog looks at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around.

“I said I hope it is a good party,” said Galder, loudly.

A
T THE MOMENT IT IS
, said Death levelly. I
THINK IT MIGHT GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT
.

“Why?”

T
HAT’S WHEN THEY THINK
I’
LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF
.