‘Spell giving you trouble?’
‘Yargh.’
‘Try humming.’
Rincewind grimaced. ‘I’m going to get rid of this thing,’ he said thickly. ‘It’s going back into the book where it belongs. I want my head back!’
‘But then—’ Twoflower began, and stopped. They could all hear it – a distant chanting and the stamping of many feet.
‘Do you think it’s star people?’ said Bethan.
It was. The lead marchers came around a corner a hundred yards away, behind a ragged white banner with an eight-pointed star on it.
‘Not just star people,’ said Twoflower. ‘All kinds of people!’
The crowd swept them up in its passage. One moment they were standing in the deserted street, the next they were perforce moving with a tide of humanity that bore them onwards through the city.
Torchlight flickered easily on the damp tunnels far under the University as the heads of the eight Orders of wizardry filed onwards.
‘At least it’s cool down here,’ said one.
‘We shouldn’t be down here.’
Trymon, who was leading the party, said nothing. But he was thinking very hard. He was thinking about the ottle of oil in his belt, and the eight keys the wizards carried – eight keys that would fit the eight locks that chained the Octavo to its lectern. He was thinking that old wizards who sense that magic is draining away are preoccupied with their own problems and are perhaps less alert than they should be. He was thinking that within a few minutes the Octavo, the greatest concentration of magic on the Disc, would be under his hands.
Despite the coolness of the tunnel he began to sweat.
They came to a lead-lined door set in the sheer stone. Trymon took a heavy key – a good, honest iron key, not like the twisted and disconcerting keys that would unlock the Octavo – gave the lock a squirt of oil, inserted the key, turned it. The lock squeaked open protestingly.
‘Are we of one resolve?’ said Trymon. There was a series of vaguely affirmative grunts.
He pushed at the door.
A warm gale of thick and somehow oily air rolled over them. The air was filled with a high-pitched and unpleasant chittering. Tiny sparks of octarine fire flared off every nose, fingernail and beard.
The wizards, their heads bowed against the storm of randomised magic that blew out of the room, pushed forward. Half-formed shapes giggled and fluttered around them as the nightmare inhabitants of the Dungeon Dimensions constantly probed (with things that passed for fingers only because they were at the ends of their arms) for an unguarded entry into the circle of firelight that passed for the universe of reason and order.
Even at this bad time for all things magical, even in a room designed to damp down all magical vibrations, the Octavo was still crackling with power.
There was no real need for the torches. The Octavo filled the room with a dull, sullen light, which wasn’t strictly light at all but the opposite of light; darkness isn’t the opposite of light, it is simply its absence, and what was radiating from the book was the light that lies on the far side of darkness, the light fantastic.
It was a rather disappointing purple colour.
As has been noted before, the Octavo was chained to a lectern carved into the shape of something that looked vaguely avian, slightly reptilian and horribly alive. Two glittering eyes regarded the wizards with hooded hatred.
‘I saw it move,’ said one of them.
‘We’re safe so long as we don’t touch the book,’ said Trymon. He pulled a scroll out of his belt and unrolled it.
‘Bring that torch here,’ he said, ‘and put that cigarette out!’
He waited for the explosion of infuriated pride. But none came. Instead, the offending mage removed the dogend from his lips with trembling fingers and ground it into the floor.
Trymon exulted. So, he thought, they do what I say. Just for now, maybe – but just for now is enough.
He peered at the crabby writing of a wizard long dead.
‘Right,’ he said, let’s see: “To Appease Yt, The Thynge That Ys The Guardian . . .” ‘
The crowd surged over one of the bridges that linked Morpork with Ankh. Below it the river, turgid at the best of times, was a mere trickle which steamed.
The bridge shook under their feet rather more than it should. Strange ripples ran across the muddy remains of the river. A few tiles slid off the roof of a nearby house.
‘What was that?’ said Twoflower.
Bethan looked behind them, and screamed.
The star was rising. As the Disc’s own sun scurried for safety below the horizon the great bloated ball of the star climbed slowly into the sky until the whole of it was several degrees above the edge of the world.
They pulled Rincewind into the safety of a doorway. The crowd hardly noticed them, but ran on, terrified as lemmings.
‘The star’s got spots on,’ said Twoflower.
‘No,’ said Rincewind. ‘They’re . . . things. Things going around the star. Like the sun goes around the Disc. But they’re close in, because, because . . .’ he paused. ‘I nearly know!’
‘Know what?’
‘I’ve got to get rid of this Spell!’
‘Which way is the University?’ said Bethan.
‘This way!’ said Rincewind, pointing along the street.
‘It must be very popular. That’s where everyone’s going.’
‘I wonder why?’ said Twoflower.
‘Somehow,’ said Rincewind, ‘I don’t think it’s to enroll for evening classes.’
In fact Unseen University was under siege, or at least those parts of it that extruded into the usual, everyday dimensions were under siege. The crowds outside its gates were, generally, making one of two demands. They were demanding that either a) the wizards should stop messing about and get rid of the star or, and this was the demand favoured by the star people, that b) they should cease all magic and commit suicide in good order, thus ridding the Disc of the curse of magic and warding off the terrible threat in the sky.
The wizards on the other side of the walls had no idea how to do a) and no intention of doing b) and many had in fact plumped for c), which largely consisted of nipping out of hidden side doors and having it away on their toes as far as possible, if not faster.
What reliable magic still remained in the University was being channelled into keeping the great gates secure. The wizards were learning that while it was all very fine and impressive to have a set of gates that were locked by magic, it ought to have occurred to the builders to include some sort of emergency back-up device such as, for example, a pair of ordinary, unimpressive stout iron bolts.
In the square outside the gates several large bonfires had been lit, for effect as much as anything else, because the heat from the star was scorching.
‘But you can still see the stars,’ said Twoflower, ‘the ther stars, I mean. The little ones. In a black sky.’
Rincewind ignored him. He was looking at the gates. A group of star people and citizens were trying to batter them down.
‘It’s hopeless,’ said Bethan. ‘We’ll never get in. Where are you going?’
‘For a walk,’ said Rincewind. He was setting off determinedly down a side street.
There were one or two freelance rioters here, mostly engaged in wrecking shops. Rincewind took no notice, but followed the wall until it ran parallel to a dark alley that had the usual unfortunate smell of all alleys, everywhere.
Then he started looking very closely at the stonework. The wall here was twenty feet high, and topped with cruel metal spikes.
‘I need a knife,’ he said.
‘You’re going to cut your way through?’ said Bethan.
‘Just find me a knife,’ said Rincewind. He started to tap stones.
Twoflower and Bethan looked at each other, and shrugged. A few minutes later they returned with a selection of knives, and Twoflower had even managed to find a sword.
‘We just helped ourselves,’ said Bethan.
‘But we left some money,’ said Twoflower. ‘I mean, we would have left some money, if we’d had any —’
‘So he insisted on writing a note,’ said Bethan wearily.
Twoflower drew himself up to his full height, which was hardly worth it.
‘I see no reason—’ he began, stiffly.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Bethan, sitting down glumly. ‘I know you don’t. Rincewind, all the shops have been smashed open, there was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?’
‘Yeah,’ said Rincewind, picking up a knife and testing its blade thoughtfully. ‘Luters, I expect.’
He thrust the blade into the wall, twisted it, and stepped ack as a heavy stone fell out. He looked up, counting under his breath, and levered another stone from its socket.