‘So. It is a brick of ordinariness, within a sock. The whole becoming a weapon.’
‘Um. Yes.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Um. You swing it, and then you. Hit something with it. Or sometimes the back of your hand, sometimes.’
‘And then perhaps it destroys a whole city?’ said Coin.
Rincewind stared into Coin’s golden eyes, and then at his sock. He had pulled it on and off several times a year for years. It had darns he’d grown to know and lo-well, know. Some of them had whole families of darns of their own. There were a number of descriptions that could be applied to the sock, but slayer-of-cities wasn’t among them.
‘Not really,’ he said at last. ‘It sort of kills people but leaves buildings standing.’
Rincewind’s mind was operating at the speed of continental drift. Parts of it were telling him that he was confronting the sourcerer, but they were in direct conflict with other parts. Rincewind had heard quite a lot about the power of the sourcerer, the staff of the sourcerer, the wickedness of the sourcerer and so on. The only thing no-one had mentioned was the age of the sourcerer.
He glanced towards the staff.
‘And what does that do?’ he said slowly.
And the staff said, You must kill this man.
The wizards, who had been cautiously struggling upright, flung themselves flat again.
The voice of the hat had been bad enough, but the voice of the staff was metallic and precise; it didn’t sound as though it was offering advice but simply stating the way the future had to be. It sounded quite impossible to ignore.
Coin half-raised his arm, and hesitated.
‘Why?’ he said.
You do not disobey me.
‘You don’t have to,’ said Rincewind hurriedly. ‘It’s only a thing.’
‘I do not see why I should hurt him,’ said Coin. ‘He looks so harmless. Like an angry rabbit.’
He defies us.
‘Not me,’ said Rincewind, thrusting the arm with the sock behind his back and trying to ignore the bit about the rabbit.
‘Why should I do everything you tell me?’ said Coin to the staff. ‘I always do everything you tell me, and it doesn’t help people at all.’
People must fear you. Have I taught you nothing?
‘But he looks so funny, He’s got a sock,’ said Coin.
He screamed, and his arm jerked oddly. Rincewind’s hair stood on end.
You will do as you are commanded.
‘I won’t’.
You know what happens to boys who are bad.
There was a crackle and a smell of scorched flesh. Coin dropped to his knees.
‘Here, hang on a minute-’ Rincewind began.
Coin opened his eyes. They were gold still, but flecked with brown.
Rincewind swung his sock around in a wide humming arc that connected with the staff halfway along its length. There was a brief explosion of brick dust and burnt wool and the staff spun out of the boy’s hand. Wizards scattered as it tumbled end over end across the floor.
It reached the parapet, bounced upwards and shot over the edge.
But, instead of falling, it steadied itself in the air, spun in its own length and sped back again trailing octarine sparks and making a noise like a buzzsaw.
Rincewind pushed the stunned boy behind him, threw away the ravaged sock and whipped his hat off, flailing wildly as the staff bored towards him. It caught him on the side of the head, delivering a shock that almost welded his teeth together and toppled him like a thin and ragged tree.
The staff turned again in mid-air, glowing red-hot now, and swept back for another and quite definitely final run.
Rincewind struggled up on his elbows and watched in horrified fascination as it swooped through the chilly air which, for some reason he didn’t understand, seemed to be full of snowflakes.
And became tinged with purple, blotched with blue. Time slowed and ground to a halt like an underwound phonograph.
Rincewind looked up at the tall black figure that had appeared a few feet away.
It was, of course, Death.
He turned his glowing eyesockets towards Rincewind and said, in a voice like the collapse of undersea chasms, GOOD AFTERNOON.
He turned away as if he had completed all necessary business for the time being, stared at the horizon for a while, and started to tap one foot idly. It sounded like a bagful of maracas.
‘Er,’ said Rincewind.
Death appeared to remember him. I’M SORRY? he said politely.
‘I always wondered how it was going to be,’ said Rincewind.
Death took an hourglass out from the mysterious folds of his ebon robes and peered at it.
DID YOU? he said, vaguely.
‘I suppose I can’t complain,’ said Rincewind virtuously. ‘I’ve had a good life. Well, quite good.’ He hesitated. ‘Well, not all that good. I suppose most people would call it pretty awful.’ He considered it further. ‘I would,’ he added, half to himself.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?
Rincewind was nonplussed. ‘Don’t you make an appearance when a wizard is about to die?’
OF COURSE. AND I MUST SAY YOU PEOPLE ARE GIVING ME A BUSY DAY
‘How do you manage to be in so many places at the same time?’
GOOD ORGANISATION.
Time returned. The staff, which had been hanging in the air a few feet away from Rincewind, started to scream forward again.
And there was a metallic thud as Coin caught it onehandedly in mid-flight.
The staff uttered a noise like a thousand fingernails dragging across glass. It thrashed wildly up and down, flailing at the arm that held it, and bloomed into evil green flame along its entire length.
So. At the last, you fail me.
Coin groaned but held on as the metal under his fingertips went red, then white.
He thrust the arm out in front of him, and the force streaming from the staff roared past him and drew sparks from his hair and whipped his robe up into weird and unpleasant shapes. He screamed and whirled the staff round and smashed it on the parapet, leaving a long bubbling line in the stone.
Then he threw it away. It clattered against the stones and rolled to a halt, wizards scattering out of its path.
Coin sagged to his knees, shaking.
‘I don’t like killing people,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it can’t be right.’
‘Hold on to that thought,’ said Rincewind fervently.
‘What happens to people after they’re dead?’ said Coin.
Rincewind glanced up at Death.
‘I think this one’s for you,’ he said.
HE CANNOT SEE OR HEAR ME, said Death, UNTIL HE WANTS TO. There was a little clinking noise. The staff was rolling back towards Coin, who looked down at it in horror.
Pick me up.
‘You don’t have to,’ said Rincewind again.
You cannot resist me. You cannot defeat yourself, said the staff.
Coin reached out very slowly, and picked it up.
Rincewind glanced at his sock. It was a stub of burnt wool, its brief career as a weapon of war having sent it beyond the help of any darning needle.
Now kill him.
Rincewind held his breath. The watching wizards held their breath. Even Death, who had nothing to hold but his scythe, held it tensely.
‘No,’ said Coin.
You know what happens to boys who are bad.
Rincewind saw the sourcerer’s face go pale.
The staff’s voice changed. Now it wheedled.
Without me, who would there be to tell you what to do?
‘That is true,’ said Coin slowly.
See what you have achieved.
Coin stared slowly around at the frightened faces.
‘I am seeing,’ he said.
I taught you everything I know.
‘I am thinking,’ said Coin, ‘that you do not know enough.’
Ingrate! Who gave you your destiny?
‘You did,’ said the boy. He raised his head.
‘I realise that I was wrong,’ he added, quietly.
Good –
‘I did not throw you far enough!’
Coin got to his feet in one movement and swung the staff over his head. He stood still as a statue, his hand lost in a ball of light that was the colour of molten copper. It turned green, ascended through shades of blue, hovered in the violet and then seared into pure octarine.
Rincewind shaded his eyes against the glare and saw Coin’s hand, still whole, still gripping tight, with beads of molten metal glittering between his fingers.
He slithered away, and bumped into Hakardly. The old wizard was standing like a statue, with his mouth open.
‘What’ll happen?’ said Rincewind.
‘He’ll never beat it,’ said Hakardly hoarsely. ‘It’s his. It’s as strong as him. He’s got the power, but it knows how to channel it.’
‘You mean they’ll cancel each other out?’
‘Hopefully.’
The battle was hidden in its own infernal glow. Then the floor began to tremble.
‘They’re drawing on everything magical,’ said Hakardly. ‘We’d better leave the tower.’
‘Why?’
‘I imagine it will vanish soon enough.’
And, indeed, the white flagstones around the glow looked as though they were unravelling and disappearing into it.