‘Shut up!’
Rincewind raised one arm uncertainly and pointed it at the door.
There was total silence.
Oh gods, he thought, what happens now?
In the blackness at the back of his mind the Spell shifted uneasily.
Rincewind tried to get in tune or whatever with the metal of the lock. If he could sow discord amongst its atoms so that they flew apart —
Nothing happened.
He swallowed hard, and turned his attention to the wood. It was old and nearly fossilised, and probably wouldn’t burn even if soaked in oil and dropped into a furnace. He tried anyway, explaining to the ancient molecules that they should try to jump up and down to keep warm —
In the strained silence of his own mind he glared at the Spell, which looked very sheepish.
He considered the air around the door itself, how it might best be twisted into weird shapes so that the door existed in another set of dimensions entirely.
The door sat there, defiantly solid.
Sweating, his mind beginning the endless walk up to 187 the blackboard in front of the grinning class, he turned desperately to the lock again. It must be made of little bits of metal, not very heavy —
From the grille came the faintest of sounds. It was the noise of wizards untensing themselves and shaking their heads.
Someone whispered, ‘I told you—’
There was a tiny grinding noise, and a click.
Rincewind’s face was a mask. Perspiration dripped off his chin.
There was another click, and the grinding of reluctant spindles. Trymon had oiled the lock, but the oil had been soaked up by the rust and dust of years, and the only way for a wizard to move something by magic, unless he can harness some external movement, is to use the leverage of his mind itself.
Rincewind was trying very hard to prevent his brain being pushed out of his ears.
The lock rattled. Metal rods flexed in pitted groves, gave in, pushed levers.
Levers clicked, notches engaged. There was a long drawn-out grinding noise that left Rincewind on his knees.
The door swung open on pained hinges. The wizards sidled out cautiously.
Twoflower and Bethan helped Rincewind to his feet. He stood grey-faced and swaying.
‘Not bad,’ said one of the wizards, looking closely at the lock. ‘A little slow, perhaps.’
‘Never mind that!’ snapped Jiglad Wert. ‘Did you three see anyone on the way down here?’
‘No,’ said Twoflower.
‘Someone has stolen the Octavo.’
Rincewind’s head jerked up. His eyes focussed.
‘Who?’
‘Trymon —’
Rincewind swallowed. ‘Tall man?’ he said. ‘Fair hair, looks a bit like a ferret?’
‘Now that you mention it —’
‘He was in my class,’ said Rincewind. ‘They always said he’d go a long way.’
‘He’ll go a lot further if he opens the book,’ said one of the wizards, who was hastily rolling a cigarette in shaking fingers.
‘Why?’ said Twoflower. ‘What will happen?’
The wizards looked at one another.
‘It’s an ancient secret, handed down from mage to mage, and we can’t pass it on to knowlessmen,’ said Wert.
‘Oh, go on,’ said Twoflower.
‘Oh well, it probably doesn’t matter any more. One mind can’t hold all the spells. It’ll break down, and leave a hole.’
‘What? In his head?’
‘Um. No. In the fabric of the Universe,’ said Wert. ‘He might think he can control it by himself, but —’
They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow vibration, then rose suddenly to a knife-edge whine that bypassed the eardrums and bored straight into the brain. It sounded like a human voice singing, or chanting, or screamfng, but there were deeper and more horrible harmonics.
The wizards went pale. Then, as one man, they turned and ran up the steps.
There were crowds outside the building. Some people were holding torches, others had stopped in the act of piling kindling around the walls. But everyone was staring up at the Tower of Art.
The wizards pushed their way through the unheeding bodies, and turned to look up.
The sky was full of moons. Each one was three times bigger than the Disc’s own moon, and each was in shadow except for a pink crescent where it caught the light of the star.
But in front of everything the top of the Tower of Art was an incandescent fury. Shapes could be dimly glimpsed within it, but there was nothing reassuring about them. The sound had changed now to the wasplike buzzing, magnified a million times.
Some of the wizards sank to their knees.
‘He’s done it,’ said Wert, shaking his head. ‘He’s opened a pathway.’
‘Are those things demons?’ said Twoflower.
‘Oh, demons,’ said Wert. ‘Demons would be a picnic compared with what’s trying to come through up there.’
‘They’re worse than anything we can possibly imagine,’ said Panter.
‘I can imagine some pretty bad things,’ said Rincewind.
‘These are worse.’
‘Oh.’
‘And what do you propose to do about it?’ said a clear voice.
They turned. Bethan was glaring at them, arms folded.
‘Pardon?’ said Wert.
‘You’re wizards, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, get on with it.’
‘What, tackle that?’ said Rincewind.
‘Know anyone else?’
Wert pushed forward. ‘Madam, I don’t think you quite understand —’
‘The Dungeons Dimensions will empty into our Universe, right?’ said Bethan.
‘Well, yes —’
‘We’ll all be eaten by things with tentacles for faces, right?’
‘Nothing so pleasant, but —’
‘And you’re just going to let it happen?’
‘Listen,’ said Rincewind. ‘It’s all over, do you see? You can’t put the spells back in the book, you can’t unsay what’s been said, you can’t —’
‘You can try!’
Rincewind sighed, and turned to Twoflower.
He wasn’t there. Rincewind’s eyes turned inevitably towards the base of the Tower of Art, and he was just in time to see the tourist’s plump figure, sword inexpertly in hand, as it disappeared into a door.
Rincewind’s feet made their own decision and, from the oint of view of his head, got it entirely wrong.
The other wizards watched him go.
‘Well?’ said Bethan. ‘He’s going.’ . The wizards tried to avoid one another’s eyes.
Eventually Wert said, ‘We could try, I suppose. It doesn’t seem to be spreading.’
‘But we’ve got hardly any magic to speak of,’ said one of the wizards.
‘Have you got a better idea, then?’
One by one, their ceremonial robes glittering in the weird light, the wizards turned and trudged towards the tower.
The tower was hollow inside, with the stone treads of its staircase mortared spiral-fashion into the walls. Twoflower was already several turns up by the time Rincewind caught him.
‘Hold on,’ he said, as cheerfully as he could manage. ‘This sort of thing is a job for the likes of Cohen, not you. No offence.’
‘Would he do any good?’
Rincewind looked up at the actinic light that lanced down through the distant hole at the top of the staircase.
‘No,’ he admitted.
Then I’d be as good as him, wouldn’t I?’ said Twoflower, flourishing his looted sword.
Rincewind hopped after him, keeping as close to the wall as possible.
‘You don’t understand!’ he shouted. There’s unimaginable horrors up there!’
‘You always said I didn’t have any imagination.’
‘It’s a point, yes,’ Rincewind conceded, ‘but —’
Twoflower sat down.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to something like this ever since I came here. I mean, this is an adventure, isn’t it? Alone against the gods, that sort of thing?’
Rincewind opened and shut his mouth for a few seconds before the right words managed to come out.
‘Can you use a sword?’ he said weakly.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried.’
‘You’re mad!’
Twoflower looked at him with his head on one side. ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ he said. ‘I’m here because I don’t know any better, but what about you?’ He pointed downwards, to where the other wizards were toiling up the stairs. ‘What about them?’
Blue light speared down the inside of the tower. There was a peal of thunder.
The wizards reached them, coughing horribly and fighting for breath.
‘What’s the plan?’ said Rincewind.
‘There isn’t one,’ said Wert.
‘Right. Fine,’ said Rincewind. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it, then.’
‘You’ll come with us,’ said Panter.
‘But I’m not even a proper wizard. You threw me out, remember?’
‘I can’t think of any student less able,’ said the old wizard, ‘but you’re here, and that’s the only qualification you need. Come on.’
The light flared and went out. The terrible noises died as if strangled.
Silence filled the tower; one of those heavy, pressing silences.
‘It’s stopped,’ said Twoflower.
Something moved, high up against the circle of red sky. It fell slowly, turning over and over and drifting from side to side. It hit the stairs a turn above them.
Rincewind was first to it.
It was the Octavo. But it lay on the stone as limp and lifeless as any other book, its pages fluttering in the breeze that blew up the tower.