Sourcery

'No,' said Rincewind, raising his hands protectively. 'Absolutely not. Don't even-’

'It belonged to my grandfather-’

'A real magic carpet?' said Nijel.

'Listen,' said Rincewind urgently. 'I get vertigo just listening to tall stories.'

'Oh, quite,' the Seriph burped gently, 'genuine. Very pretty pattern.' He squinted at the bottle again, and sighed. 'It was a lovely blue colour,' he added.

'And you wouldn't happen to know where it is?' said Conina slowly, in the ma

'In the treasury. I know the way there. I'm extremely rich, you know. Or so they tell me.' He lowered his voice and tried to wink at Conina, eventually managing it with both eyes. 'We could sit on it,' he said, breaking into a sweat. 'And you could tell me a story...'

Rincewind tried to scream through grittedteeth.

His ankles were already begi

'I'm not going to ride on a magic carpet!' he hissed. 'I'm afraid of grounds!'

'You mean heights,' said Conina. And stop being silly.'

'I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!'

The battle of Al Khali was a hammer-headed cloud, in whose roiling depths weird shapes could be heard and strange sounds were seen. Occasional misses seared across the city. Where they landed things were ... different.

For example, a large part of the soak had turned into an impenetrable forest of giant yellow mushrooms. No-one knew what effect this had on its inhabitants, although possibly they hadn't noticed.

The temple of Offler the Crocodile God, patron deity of the city, was now a rather ugly sugary thing constructed in five dimensions. But this was no problem because it was being eaten by a herd of giant ants.

On the other hand, not many people were left to appreciate this statement against uncontrolled civic alteration, because most of them were ru

Down below the panic on the roads the Luggage paddled slowly up one of the reed-lined drainage ditches. A little way ahead of it a moving wave of small alligators, rats and snapping turtles was pouring out of the water and scrambling frantically up the bank, propelled by some vague but absolutely accurate animal instinct.

The Luggage's lid was set in an expression of grim determination. It didn't want much out of the world, except for the total extinction of every other lifeform, but what it needed more than anything else now was its owner.

It was easy to see that the room was a treasury by its incredible emptiness. Doors hung off hooks. Barred alcoves had been smashed in. Lots of smashed chests lay around, and this gave Rincewind a pang of guilt and he wondered, for about two seconds, where the Luggage had got to.

There was a respectful silence, as there always is when large sums of money have just passed away. Nijel wandered off and prodded some of the chests in a forlorn search for secret drawers, as per the instructions in Chapter Eleven.

Conina reached down and picked up a small copper coin.

'How horrible,' said Rincewind eventually. 'A treasury with no treasure in it.'

The seriph stood and beamed. 'Not to worry', he said.

'But all your money has been stolen!' said Conina.

'The servants, I expect,' said Creosote. 'Very disloyal of them.'

Rincewind gave him an odd look. 'Doesn't it worry you?'

'Not much. I never really spent anything. I've often wondered what being poor was like.'

'You're going to get a huge opportunity to find out.'

'Will I need training?'

'It comes naturally,' said Rincewind. 'You pick it up as you go along.' There was a distant explosion and part of the ceiling turned to jelly.

'Erm, excuse me,' said Nijel, 'this carpet ...'

'Yes,' said Conina, 'the carpet.'

Creosote gave them a benevolent, slightly tipsy smile.

'Ah, yes. The carpet. Push the nose of the statue behind you, peach-buttocked jewel of the desert dawn.'

Conina, blushing, performed this act of minor sacrilege on a large green statue of Offler the Crocodile God.

Nothing happened. Secret compartments assiduously failed to open.

'Um. Try the left hand.'

She gave it an experimental twist. Creosote scratched his head.

'Maybe it was the right hand...'

'I should try and remember, if I were you,' said Con­ina sharply, when that didn't work either. 'There aren't many bits left that I'd care to pull.'

'What's that thing there?' said Rincewind.

'You're really going to hear about it if it isn't the tail,' said Conina, and gave it a kick.

There was a distant metallic groaning noise, like a saucepan in pain. The statue shuddered. It was fol­lowed by a few heavy clonks somewhere inside the wall, and Offler the Crocodile God grated ponderously aside. There was a tu

'My grandfather had this built for our more interest­ing treasure,' said Creosote. 'He was very-’ he groped for a word-’ingenious.'

'If you think I'm setting foot in there-’ Rincewind began.

'Stand aside,' said Nijel, loftily. 'I will go first.'

'There could be traps-’ said Conina doubtfully. She shot the Seriph a glance.

'Oh, probably, O gazelle of Heaven,' he said. 'I haven't been in there since I was six. There were some slabs you shouldn't tread on, I think.'

'Don't worry about that,' said Nijel, peering into the gloom of the tu

'Had a lot of experience at this sort of thing, have you?' said Rincewind sourly.

'Well, I know Chapter Fourteen off by heart. It had illustrations,' said Nijel, and ducked into the shadows.

They waited for several minutes in what would have been a horrified hush if it wasn't for the muffled grunts and occasional thumping noises from the tu

'There's absolutely nothing,' he said. 'I've tried every­thing. It's as steady as a rock. Everything must have seized up, or something.'

Rincewind and Conina exchanged glances.

'He doesn't know the first thing about traps,' she said. 'When I was five, my father made me walk all the way down a passage that he'd rigged up, just to teach me-’

'He got through, didn't he?' said Rincewind.

There was a noise like a damp finger dragged across glass, but amplified a billion times, and the floor shook.

'Anyway, we haven't got a lot of choice,' he added, and ducked into the tu

20

All right. But you've got the general idea.