The Color of Magic (Discworld 1)

In front of them the billion-ton impossibility that was the magic-wrought Wyrmberg hung against the sky and that was not too bad, until Rincewind turned his head and saw the mountain’s shadow slowly unroll itself across the cloudscape of the world…

“What can you see?” said Twoflower to the dragon.

I see fighting on the top of the mountain came the gentle reply.

“See?” said Twoflower. “Hrun’s probably fighting for his life at this very moment.”

Rincewind was silent. After a moment Twoflower looked around. The wizard was staring intently at nothing at all, his lips moving soundlessly.

“Rincewind?”

The wizard made a small croaking noise.

“I’m sorry,” said Twoflower. “What did you say?”

“…all the way… the great fall…” muttered Rincewind, His eyes focused, looked puzzled for a moment, then widened in terror. He made the mistake of looking down.

“Aargh,” he opined, and began to slide.

Twoflower grabbed him.

“What’s the matter?”

Rincewind tried shutting his eyes, but there were no eyelids to his imagination and it was staring widely.

“Don’t you get scared of heights?” he managed to say.

Twoflower looked down at the tiny landscape, mottled with cloud shadows. The thought of fear hadn’t actually occurred to him.

“No,” he said. “Why should I? You’re just as dead if you fall from forty feet as you are from four thousand fathoms, that’s what I say.”

Rincewind tried to consider this dispassionately, but couldn’t see the logic of it. It wasn’t the actual falling, it was the hitting he…

e last minute he pushed Liessa aside, and felt the wild pain of the flame on his arm as he dived for safety. He rolled as he hit the ground, and flipped on to his feet again while he looked around frantically for the other dragon. It came in from one side, and Hrun was forced to take a badly-judged standing jump to escape the flame. The dragon’s tail whipped around as it passed and caught him a stinging blow across the forehead. He pushed himself upright, shaking his head to make the wheeling stars go away. His blistered back screamed pain at him.

Lio!rt came in for a second run, but slower this time to allow for the big man’s unexpected agility. As the ground drifted up he saw the barbarian standing stock still, chest heaving, arms hanging loosely by his sides. An easy target. As his dragon swooped away Lio!rt turned his head, expecting to see a dreadfully big cinder. There was nothing there. Puzzled, Lio!rt turned back.

Hrun, heaving himself over the dragon’s shoulder scales with one hand and beating out his flaming hair with the other, presented himself to his view. Lio!rt’s hand flew to his dagger, but pain had sharpened Hrun’s normally excellent reflexes to needle point. A backhand blow hammered into the dragonlord’s wrist, sending the dagger arcing away towards the ground, and another caught the man full on the chin.

The dragon, carrying the weight of two men, was only a few yards above the grass. This turned out to be fortunate, because at the moment Lio!rt lost consciousness the dragon winked out of existence. Liessa hurried across the grass and helped Hrun stagger to his feet. He blinked at her.

“What happened? What happened?” he said thickly.

“That was really fantastic,” she said. “The way you turned that somersault in mid-air and everything.”

“Yah, but what happened?”

“It’s rather difficult to explain-“

Hrun peered up at the sky. Liartes, by far the most cautious of the two brothers, was circling high above them.

“Well, you’ve got about ten seconds to try,” he said “The dragons-“

“Yah?”

“They’re imaginary.”

“Like all these imaginary burns on my arm, you mean?”