Nijel pulled back behind a handy wall. He found himself looking into Rincewind’s worried eyes.
‘Hey, that’s magic!’
‘I know,’ said Rincewind, ‘It’s not right!’ Nijel peered up at the sparkling tower.
‘But-’
‘It feels wrong,’ said Rincewind. ‘Don’t ask me why.’
Half a dozen of the Seriph’s guards erupted from an arched doorway and plunged towards the wizards, their headlong rush made all the more sinister by their hastly battle silences. For a moment their swords flashed in the sunlight, and then a couple of the wizards turned, extended their hands and –
Nijel looked away.
‘Urgh,’ he said.
A few curved swords dropped on to the cobbles.
‘I think we should very quietly go away,’ said Rincewind.
‘But didn’t you see what they just turned them into?’ ‘Dead people,’ said Rincewind. ‘I know. I don’t want to think about it.’
Nijel thought he’d never stop thinking about it, especially around Sam on windy nights. The point about being killed by magic was that it was much more inventive than, say, steel; there were all sorts of interesting new ways to die, and he couldn’t put out of his mind the shapes he’d seen, just for an instant, before the wash of octarine fire had mercifully engulfed them.
‘I didn’t think wizards were like that,’ he said, as they hurried down a passageway. ‘I thought they were more, well, more silly than sinister. Sort of figures of fun.’
‘Laugh that one off, then,’ muttered Rincewind.
‘But they just killed them, without even-’
‘I wish you wouldn’t go on about it. I saw it as well.’
Nijel drew back. His eyes narrowed.
‘You’re a wizard, too,’ he said accusingly.
‘Not that kind I’m not,’ said Rincewind shortly.
‘What kind are you, then?’
‘The non-killing kind.’
‘It was the way they looked at them as if it just didn’t matter-’ said Nijel, shaking his head. ‘That was the worst bit.’
‘Yes.’
Rincewind dropped the single syllable heavily in front of Nijel’s train of thought, like a tree trunk. The boy shuddered, but at least he shut up. Rincewind actually began to feel sorry for him, which was very unusual-he normally felt he needed all his pity for himself.
‘Is that the first time you’ve seen someone killed?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Exactly how long have you been a barbarian hero?’
‘Er. What year is this?’
Rincewind peered around a corner, but such people as were around and vertical were far too busy panicking to bother about them.
‘Out on the road, then?’ he said quietly. ‘Lost track of time? I know how it is. This is the Year of the Hyena.’
‘Oh. In that case, about-’ Nijel’s lips moved soundlessly-’about three days. Look’, he added quickly, ‘how can people kill like that? Without even thinking about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rincewind, in a tone of voice that suggested he was thinking about it.
‘I mean, even when the vizier had me thrown in the snake pit, at least he seemed to be taking an interest.’
‘That’s good. Everyone should have an interest.’
‘I mean, he even laughed!’
Ah. A sense of humour, too.’
Rincewind felt that he could see his future with the same crystal clarity that a man falling off a cliff sees the ground, and for much the same reason. So when Nijel said: ‘They just pointed their fingers without so much as-’ , Rincewind snapped: ‘Just shut up, will you? How do you think I feel about it? I’m a wizard, too!’
‘Yes, well, you’ll be all right then,’ muttered Nijel.
It wasn’t a heavy blow, because even in a rage Rincewind still had muscles like tapioca, but it caught the side of Nijel’s head and knocked him down more by the weight of surprise than its intrinsic energy.
‘Yes, I’m a wizard all right,’ Rincewind hissed. ‘A wizard who isn’t much good at magic! I’ve managed to survive up till now by not being important enough to die! And when all wizards are hated and feared, exactly how long do you think I’ll last?’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
Rincewind couldn’t have been more taken aback if Nijel had struck him.
‘What?’
‘Idiot! All you have to do is stop wearing that silly robe and get rid of that daft hat and no one will even know you’re a wizard!’
Rincewind’s mouth opened and shut a few times as he gave a very lifelike impression of a goldfish trying to grasp the concept of tap-dancing.
‘Stop wearing the robe?’ he said.
‘Sure. All those tatty sequins and things, it’s a total giveaway,’ said Nijel, struggling to his feet.
‘Get rid of the hat?’
‘You’ve got to admit that going around with “wizzard” written on it is a bit of a heavy hint.’
Rincewind gave him a worried grin.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t quite follow you-’
‘Just get rid of them. It’s easy enough, isn’t it? Just drop them somewhere and then you could be a, a, well, whatever. Something that isn’t a wizard.’
There was a pause, broken only by the distant sounds of fighting.
‘Er,’ said Rincewind, and shook his head. ‘You’ve lost me there …’
‘Good grief, it’s perfectly simple to understand!’
‘… not sure I quite catch your drift…’ murmured Rincewind, his face ghastly with sweat.
‘You can just stop being a wizard.’
Rincewind’s lips moved soundlessly as he replayed every word, one at a time, then all at once.
‘What?’ he said, and then he said, ‘Oh.’
‘Got it? Want to try it one more time?’
Rincewind nodded gloomily.
‘I don’t think you understand. A wizard isn’t what you do, it’s what you are. If I wasn’t a wizard, I wouldn’t be anything.’ He took off his hat and twiddled nervously with the loose star on its point, causing a few more cheap sequins to part company.
‘I mean, it’s got wizard written on my hat,’ he said. ‘It’s very important -‘
He stopped and stared at the hat.
‘Hat,’ he said vaguely, aware of some importunate memory pressing its nose up against the windows of his mind.
‘It’s a good hat,’ said Nijel, who felt that something was expected of him.
‘Hat,’ said Rincewind again, and then added, ‘the hat! We’ve got to get the hat!’
‘You’ve got the hat,’ Nijel pointed out.
‘Not this hat, the other hat. And Conina!’
He took a few random steps along a passageway, and then sidled back.
‘Where do you suppose they are?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘There’s a magic hat I’ve got to find. And a girl.’
,Why?,
‘It might be rather difficult to explain. I think there might be screaming involved somewhere.’
Nijel didn’t have much of a jaw but, such as it was, he stuck it out.
‘There’s a girl needs rescuing?’ he said grimly.
Rincewind hesitated. ‘Someone will probably need rescuing,’ he admitted. ‘It might possibly be her. Or at least in her vicinity.’
‘Why didn’t you say so? This is more like it, this is what I was expecting. This is what heroism is all about. Let’s go!’
There was another crash, and the sound of people yelling.
‘Where?’ said Rincewind.
Anywhere!’
Heroes usually have an ability to rush madly around crumbling palaces they hardly know, save everyone and get out just before the whole place blows up or sinks into the swamp. In fact Nijel and Rincewind visited the kitchens, assorted throne rooms, the stables (twice) and what seemed to Rincewind like several miles of corridor.
Occasionally groups of black-clad guards would scurry past them, without so much as a second glance.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Nijel. ‘Why don’t we ask someone? Are you all right?’
Rincewind leaned against a pillar decorated with embarrassing sculpture and wheezed.
‘You could grab a guard and torture the information out of him,’ he said, gulping air. Nijel gave him an odd look.
‘Wait here,’ he said, and wandered off until he found a servant industriously ransacking a cupboard.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘which way to the harem?’
‘Turn left three doors down,’ said the man, without looking around.
‘Right.’
He wandered back again and told Rincewind.
‘Yes, but did you torture him?’
‘No.’
‘That wasn’t very barbaric of you, was it?’
‘Well, I’m working up to it,’ said Nijel. ‘I mean, I didn’t say “thank you”.’
Thirty seconds later they pushed aside a heavy bead curtain and entered the seraglio of the Seriph of Al Khali.
There were gorgeous songbirds in cages of gold filigree. There were tinkling fountains. There were pots of rare orchids through which humming-birds skimmed like tiny, brilliant jewels. There were about twenty young women wearing enough clothes for, say, about half a dozen, huddled together in a silent crowd.
Rincewind had eyes for none of this. That is not to say that the sight of several dozen square yards of hip and thigh in every shade from pink to midnight black didn’t start certain tides flowing deep in the crevasses of his libido, but they were swamped by the considerably bigger flood of panic at the sight of four guards turning towards him with scimitars in their hands and the light of murder in their eyes.