Sourcery

'This is fun,' said Creosote. 'Me, robbing my own treasury. If I catch myself I can have myself flung into the snake pit.'

'But you could throw yourself on your mercy,' said Conina, ru

'Oh, no. I think I would have to teach me a lesson, as an example to myself.'

There was a little click abovethem. A small slab slid aside and a rusty metal hook descended slowly and jerkily. Another bar creaked out of the wall and tapped Rincewind on the shoulder. As he swung around, the first hook hung a yellowing notice on his back and retracted into the roof.

'What'd it do? What'd it do?’ screamed Rincewind, try­ing to read his own shoulderblades.

'It says, Kick Me,' said Conina.

A section of wall slid up beside the petrified wizard. A large boot on the end of a complicated series of metal joints gave a half-hearted wobble and then the whole thing snapped at the knee.

The three of them looked at it in silence. Then Conina said, 'We're dealing here with a warped brain, I can tell.'

Rincewind gingerly unhooked the sign and let it drop. Conina pushed past him and stalked along the passage with an air of angry caution, and when a metal hand extended itself on a spring and waggled in a friendly fashion she didn't shake it but instead traced its moulting wiring to a couple of corroded electrodes in a big glass jar.

'Your grandad was a man with a sense of humour?' she said.

'Oh, yes. Always liked a chuckle,' said Creosote.

'Oh, good,' said Conina. She prodded gingerly at a flagstone which, to Rincewind, looked no different to any of its fellows. With a sad little springy noise a moulting feather duster wobbled out of the wall at armpit height.

'I think I would have quite liked to meet the old Seriph,' she said, through gritted teeth, 'although not to shake him by the hand. You'd better give me a leg up here, wizard.'

'Pardon?'

Conina pointed irritably to a half-open stone doorway just ahead of them.

'I want to look up there,' she said. 'You just put your hands together for me to stand on, right? How do you manage to be so useless?'

'Being useful always gets me into trouble,' muttered Rincewind, trying to ignore the warm flesh brushing against his nose.

He could hear her rooting around above the door.

'I thought so,' she said.

'What is it? Fiendishly sharp spears poised to drop?'

No.'

'Spiked grill ready to skewer -?'

'It's a bucket,' said Conina flatly, giving it a push.

'What, of scalding, poisonous -?'

'Whitewash. Just a lot of old, dried-up whitewash.' Conina jumped down.

'That's grandfather for you,' said Creosote. 'Never a dull moment.'

'Well, I've just about had enough,' Conina said firmly, and pointed to the far end of the tu

They were about three feet from the far end when Rincewind felt a movement in the air above him. Conina struck him in the small of the back, shoving him forward into the room beyond. He rolled when he hit the floor, and something nicked his foot at the same time as a loud thump deafened him.

The entire roof, a huge block of stone four feet thick, had dropped into the tu

Rincewind crawled forward through the dust clouds and, with a trembling finger, traced the lettering on the side of the slab.

'Laugh This One Off,' he said.

He sat back.

'That's grandad,' said Creosote happily, 'always a-’

He intercepted Conina's gaze, which had the force of a lead pipe, and wisely shut up.

Nijel emerged from the clouds, coughing.

'I say, what happened?' he said. 'Is everyone all right? It didn't do that when I went through.'

Rincewind sought for a reply, and couldn't find any­thing better than, 'Didn't it?'

Light filtered into the deep room from tiny barred windows up near the roof. There was no way out except by walking through the several hundred tons of stone that blocked the tu

At least there was no mistaking the magic carpet. It lay rolled up on a raised slab in the middle of the room. Next to it was a small, sleek oil lamp and - Rincewind craned to see - a small gold ring. He groaned. A faint octarine corona hung over all three items, indicating that they were magical.

When Conina unrolled the carpet a number of small objects tumbled on to the floor, including a brass herring, a wooden ear, a few large square sequins and a lead box with a preserved soap bubble in it.

'What on earth are they?' said Nijel.

'Well,' said Rincewind, 'before they tried to eat that carpet, they were probably moths.'

'Gosh.'

'That's what you people never understand,' said Rincewind, wearily. 'You think magic is just something you can pick up and use, like a, a-’

'Parsnip?' said Nijel.

'Wine bottle?' said the Seriph.

'Something like that,' said Rincewind cautiously, but rallied somewhat and went on, 'But the truth is, is-’

'Not like that?'

'More like a wine bottle?' said the Seriph hopefully.

'Magic uses people,' said Rincewind hurriedly. 'It affects you as much as you affect it, sort of thing. You can't mess around with magical things without it affect­ing you. I just thought I'd better warn you.'

'Like a wine bottle,' said Creosote, 'that-’

'-drinks you back,' said Rincewind. 'So you can put down that lamp and ring for a start, and for goodness' sake don't rub anything.'

'My grandfather built up the family fortunes with them,' said Creosote wistfully. 'His wicked uncle locked him in a cave, you know. He had to set himself up with what came to hand. He had nothing in the whole world but a magic carpet, a magic lamp, a magic ring and a grotto-ful of assorted jewels.'

'Came up the hard way, did he?' said Rincewind.

Conina spread the carpet on the floor. It had a com­plex pattern of golden dragons on a blue background. They were extremely complicated dragons, with long beards, ears and wings, and they seemed to be frozen in motion, caught in transition from one state to another, suggesting that the loom which wove them had rather more dimensions than the usual three, but the worst thing about it was that if you looked at it long enough the pattern became blue dragons on a gold background, and a terrible feeling stole over you that if you kept on trying to see both types of dragon at once your brains would trickle out of your ears.

Rincewind tore his gaze away with some difficulty as another distant explosion rocked the building.

'How does it work?' he said.

Creosote shrugged. 'I've never used it,' he said. 'I sup­pose you just say "up" and "down" and things like that.'

'How about "fly through the wall"?' said Rincewind.

All three of them looked up at the high, dark and, above all, solid walls of the room.

'We could try sitting on it and saying "rise",' Nijel vol­unteered. 'And then, before we hit the roof, we could say, well, "stop".' He considered this for a bit, and then added, 'If that's the word.'