‘I’ll be off, then,’ he said.
‘Oook.’
‘To face who knows what dreadful perils,’ Rincewind added. ‘To lay down my life in the service of mankind-’
‘Eeek.’
‘All right, bipeds-’
‘Woof.’
‘- and quadrapeds, all right.’ He glanced at the Patrician’s jamjar, a beaten man.
‘And lizards,’ he added. ‘Can I go now?’
A gale was howling down out of a clear sky as Rincewind toiled towards the tower of sourcery. Its high white doors were shut so tightly it was barely possible to see their outline in the milky surface of the stone.
He hammered on it for a bit, but nothing much happened. The doors seemed to absorb the sound.
‘Fine thing,’ he muttered to himself, and remembered the carpet. It was lying where he had left it, which was another sign that Ankh had changed. In the thieving days before the sourcerer nothing stayed for long where you left it. Nothing printable, anyway.
He rolled it out on the cobbles so that the golden dragons writhed against the blue ground, unless of course the blue dragons were flying against a golden sky.
He sat down.
He stood up.
He sat down again and hitched up his robe and, with some effort, unrolled one of his socks. Then he replaced his boot and wandered around for a bit until he found, among the rubble, a half-brick. He inserted the half-brick into the sock and gave the sock a few thoughtful swings.
Rincewind had grown up in Morpork. What a Morpork citizen liked to have on his side in a fight was odds of about twenty to one, but failing that a sockful of half-brick and a dark alley to lurk in was generally considered a better bet than any two magic swords you cared to name.
He sat down again.
‘Up,’ he commanded.
The carpet did not respond. Rincewind peered at the pattern, then lifted a corner of the carpet and tried to make out if the underside was any better.
‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘down. Very, very carefully. Down.’
‘Sheep,’ slurred War. ‘It was sheep.’ His helmeted head hit the bar with a clang. He raised it again. ‘Sheep.’
‘Nonono,’ said Famine, raising a thin finger unsteadily. ‘Some other domess … dummist … tame animal. Like pig. Heifer. Kitten? Like that. Not sheep.’
‘Bees,’ said Pestilence, and slid gently out of his seat.
‘O-kay,’ said War, ignoring him, ‘right. Once again, then. From the top.’ He rapped the side of his glass for the note.
‘We are poor little … unidentified domesticated animals … that have lost our way …’ he quavered.
‘Baabaabaa,’ muttered Pestilence, from the floor.
War shook his head. ‘It isn’t the same, you know,’ he said. ‘Not without him. He used to come in beautifully on the bass.’
‘Baabaabaa,’ Pestilence repeated.
‘Oh, shut up,’ said War, and reached uncertainly for a bottle.
The gale buffeted the top of the tower, a hot, unpleasant wind that whispered with strange voices and rubbed the skin like fine sandpaper.