The Colour of Magic (11 page)

Most of them were females, although there were a few of the giant males among them. They stood like god-shaped statues among the small, intelligent females. Insects, thought Rincewind. The Tree is like a hive.

But why were there dryads at all? As far as he could recall, the tree people had died out centuries before. They had been out-evolved by humans, like most of the other Twilight Peoples. Only elves and trolls had survived the coming of Man to the discworld; the elves because they were altogether too clever by half, and the trollen folk because they were at least as good as humans at being nasty, spiteful and greedy. Dryads were supposed to have died out, along with gnomes and pixies.

The background roar was louder here. Sometimes a pulsing golden glow would race up the translucent walls until it was lost in the haze overhead. Some power in the air made it vibrate.

'O incompetent wizard,' said Druellae, 'see some magic. Not your weasel-faced tame magic, but root-and-branch magic, the old magic. Wild magic. Watch.'

Fifty or so of the females formed a tight cluster, joined hands and walked backwards until they formed the circumference of a large circle. The rest of the dryads began a low chant. Then, at a nod from Druellae, the circle began to spin widdershins.

As the pace began to quicken and the complicated threads of the chant began to rise Rincewind found himself watching fascinated. He had heard about the Old Magic at University, although it was forbidden to wizards. He knew that when the circle was spinning fast enough against the standing magical field of the discworld itself in its slow turning, the resulting astral friction would build up a vast potential difference which would earth itself by a vast discharge of the Elemental Magical Force.

The circle was a blur now, and the walls of the Tree rang with the echoes of the chant—

Rincewind felt the familiar sticky prickling in the scalp that indicated the build-up of a heavy charge of raw enchantment in the vicinity, and so he was not utterly amazed when, a few seconds later, a shaft of vivid octarine light speared down from the invisible ceiling and focused, crackling, in the centre of the circle.

There it formed an image of a storm-swept, tree-girt hill with a temple on its crest. Its shape did unpleasant things to the eye. Rincewind knew that if it was a temple to Bel-Shamharoth it would have eight sides. (Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't been surprised.)

Rain streamed off the black walls of the temple. The only sign of life was the horse tethered outside, and it wasn't Twoflower's horse. For one thing, it was too big. It was a white charger with hooves the size of meat dishes and leather harness aglitter with ostentatious gold ornamentation. It was currently enjoying a nosebag.

There was something familiar about it. Rincewind tried to remember where he had seen it before.

It looked as though it was capable of a fair turn of speed, anyway. A speed which, once it had lumbered up to it, it could maintain for a long time. All Rincewind had to do was shake off his guards, fight his way out of the Tree, find the temple and steal the horse out from under whatever it was that Bel-Shamharoth used for a nose.

'The Sender of Eight has two for dinner, it seems,' said Druellae, looking hard at Rincewind. 'Who does that steed belong to, false wizard?'

'I've no idea.'

'No? Well, it does not matter. We shall see soon enough.'

She waved a hand. The focus of the image moved inwards, darted through a great octagonal archway and sped along the corridor within.

There was a figure there, sidling along stealthily with its back against one wall. Rincewind saw the gleam of gold and bronze.

There was no mistaking that shape. He'd seen it many times. The wide chest, the neck like a tree trunk, the surprisingly small head under its wild thatch of black hair looking like a tomato on a coffin . . . he could put a name to the creeping figure, and that name was Hrun the Barbarian.

Hrun was one of the Circle Sea's more durable heroes: a fighter of dragons, a despoiler of temples, a hired sword, the kingpost of every street brawl. He could even – and unlike many heroes of Rincewind's acquaintance – speak words of more than two syllables, if given time and maybe a hint or two.

There was a sound on the edge of Rincewind's hearing. It sounded like several skulls bouncing down the steps of some distant dungeon. He looked sideways at his guards to see if they had heard it.

They had all their limited attention focused on Hrun, who was admittedly built on the same lines as themselves. Their hands were resting lightly on the wizard's shoulders.

Rincewind ducked, jerked backwards like a tumbler, and came up running. Behind him he heard Druellae shout, and he redoubled his speed.

Something caught the hood of his robe, which tore off. A he-dryad waiting at the stairs spread his arms wide and grinned woodenly at the figure hurtling towards him. Without breaking his stride Rincewind ducked again, so low that his chin was on a level with his knees, while a fist like a log sizzled through the air by his ear.

Ahead of him a whole spinney of the tree men awaited. He spun around, dodged another blow from the puzzled guard, and sped back towards the circle, passing on the way the dryads who were pursuing him and leaving them as disorganized as a set of skittles.

But there were still more in front, pushing their way through the crowds of females and smacking their fists into the horny palms of their hands with anticipatory concentration.

'Stand still, false wizard,' said Druellae, stepping forward. Behind her the enchanted dancers spun on; the focus of the circle was now drifting along a violet-lit corridor.

Rincewind cracked.

'Will you knock that off!' he snarled. 'Let's just get this straight, right? I
am
a real wizard!' He stamped a foot petulantly.

'Indeed?' said the dryad. 'Then let us see you pass a spell.'

'Uh—' began Rincewind. The fact was that, since the ancient and mysterious spell had squatted in his mind, he had been unable to remember even the simplest cantrap for, say, killing cockroaches or scratching the small of his back without using his hands. The mages at Unseen University had tried to explain this by suggesting that the involuntary memorizing of the spell had, as it were, tied up all his spell-retention cells. In his darker moments Rincewind had come up with his own explanation as to why even minor spells refused to stay in his head for more than a few seconds.

They were scared, he decided.

'Um—' he repeated.

'A small one would do,' said Druellae, watching him curl his lips in a frenzy of anger and embarrassment. She signalled, and a couple of he-dryads closed in.

The Spell chose that moment to vault into the temporarily abandoned saddle of Rincewind's consciousness. He felt it sitting there, leering defiantly at him.

'I do know a spell,' he said wearily.

'Yes? Pray tell,' said Druellae.

Rincewind wasn't sure that he dared, although the spell was trying to take control of his tongue. He fought it.

'You thed you could read by bind,' he said indistinctly. 'Read it.'

She stepped forward, looking mockingly into his eyes.

Her smile froze. Her hands raised protectively, she crouched back. From her throat came a sound of pure terror.

Rincewind looked around. The rest of the dryads were also backing away. What had he done? Something terrible, apparently.

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him. He backed away, ducked between the still-spinning dryads who were creating the magic circle, and watched to see what Druellae would do next.

'Grab him,' she screamed. 'Take him a long way from the Tree and kill him!'

Rincewind turned and bolted.

Across the focus of the circle.

There was a brilliant flash.

There was a sudden darkness.

There was a vaguely Rincewind-shaped violet shadow, dwindling to a point and winking out.

There was nothing at all.

Hrun the Barbarian crept soundlessly along the corridors, which were lit with a light so violet that it was almost black. His earlier confusion was gone. This was obviously a magical temple, and that explained everything.

It explained why, earlier in the afternoon, he had espied a chest by the side of the track while riding through this benighted forest. Its top was invitingly open, displaying much gold. But when he had leapt off his horse to approach it the chest had sprouted legs and had gone trotting off into the forest, stopping again a few hundred yards away.

Now, after several hours of teasing pursuit, he had lost it in these hell-lit tunnels. On the whole, the unpleasant carvings and occasional disjointed skeletons he passed held no fears for Hrun. This was partly because he was not exceptionally bright while being at the same time exceptionally unimaginative, but it was also because odd carvings and perilous tunnels were all in a day's work. He spent a great deal of time in similar situations, seeking gold or demons or distressed virgins and relieving them respectively of their owners, their lives and at least one cause of their distress.

Observe Hrun, as he leaps cat-footed across a suspicious tunnel mouth. Even in this violet light his skin gleams coppery. There is much gold about his person, in the form of anklets and wristlets, but otherwise he is naked except for a leopardskin loincloth. He took that in the steaming forests of Howondaland, after killing its owner with his teeth.

In his right hand he carried the magical black sword Kring, which was forged from a thunderbolt and has a soul but suffers no scabbard. Hrun had stolen it only three days before from the impregnable palace of the Archmandrite of B'Ituni, and he was already regretting it. It was beginning to get on his nerves.

'I tell you it went down that last passage on the right,' hissed Kring in a voice like the scrape of a blade over stone.

'Be silent!'

'All I said was—'

'Shut up!'

* * *

And Twoflower . . .

He was lost, he knew that. Either the building was much bigger than it looked, or he was now on some wide underground level without having gone down any steps, or – as he was beginning to suspect – the inner dimensions of the place disobeyed a fairly basic rule of architecture by being bigger than the outside. And why all these strange lights? They were eight-sided crystals set at regular intervals in the walls and ceiling, and they shed a rather unpleasant glow that didn't so much illuminate as outline the darkness.

And whoever had done those carvings on the wall, Twoflower thought charitably, had probably been drinking too much. For years.

On the other hand, it was certainly a fascinating building. Its builders had been obsessed with the number eight. The floor was a continuous mosaic of eight-sided tiles, the corridor walls and ceilings were angled to give the corridors eight sides if the walls and ceilings were counted and, in those places where part of the masonry had fallen in, Twoflower noticed that even the stones themselves had eight sides.

'I don't like it,' said the picture imp, from his box around Twoflower's neck.

'Why not?' enquired Twoflower.

'It's weird.'

'But you're a demon. Demons can't call things weird. I mean, what's weird to a demon?'

'Oh, you know,' said the demon cautiously, glancing around nervously and shifting from claw to claw. 'Things. Stuff.'

Twoflower looked at him sternly. 'What things?'

The demon coughed nervously (demons do not breathe; however, every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life. And this was it as far as the demon was concerned).

'Oh, things,' it said wretchedly. 'Evil things. Things we don't talk about is the point I'm broadly trying to get across, master.'

Twoflower shook his head wearily. 'I wish Rincewind was here,' he said. 'He'd know what to do.'

'Him?'
sneered the demon. 'Can't see a wizard coming here. They can't have anything to do with the number eight.' The demon slapped a hand across his mouth guiltily.

Twoflower looked up at the ceiling.

'What was that?' he asked. 'Didn't you hear something?'

'Me? Hear? No! Not a thing!' the demon insisted. It jerked back into its box and slammed the door. Twoflower tapped on it. The door opened a crack.

'It sounded like a stone moving,' he explained. The door banged shut. Twoflower shrugged.

'The place is probably falling to bits,' he said to himself. He stood up.

'I say!' he shouted. 'Is anyone there?'

AIR, Air, air, replied the dark tunnels.

'Hallo?' he tried.

LO, Lo, lo.

'I know there's someone here, I just heard you playing dice!'

ICE, Ice, ice.

'Look, I had just—'

Twoflower stopped. The reason for this was the bright point of light that had popped into existence a few feet from his eyes. It grew rapidly, and after a few seconds was the tiny bright shape of a man. At this stage it began to make a noise, or, rather, Twoflower started to hear the noise it had been making all along. It sounded like a sliver of a scream, caught in one long instant of time.

The iridescent man was doll-sized now, a tortured shape tumbling in slow motion while hanging in midair. Twoflower wondered why he had thought of the phrase 'a sliver of a scream' . . . and began to wish he hadn't.

It was beginning to look like Rincewind. The wizard's mouth was open, and his face was brilliantly lit by the light of – what? Strange suns, Twoflower found himself thinking. Suns men don't usually see. He shivered.

Now the turning wizard was half man-size. At that point the growth was faster, there was a sudden crowded moment, a rush of air, and an explosion of sound. Rincewind tumbled out of the air, screaming. He hit the floor hard, choked, then rolled over with his head cradled in his arms and his body curled up tightly.