Discworld - The Colour of Magic Part 9

The stone really was was uncomfortable. Twoflower looked down and, for the first time, noticed the strange carving. uncomfortable. Twoflower looked down and, for the first time, noticed the strange carving.

It looked like a spider. Or was it a squid? Moss and lichens rather blurred the precise details. But they didn't blur the runes carved below it. Twoflower could read them clearly, and they said: Traveler, the hospitable temple of Bel-Shamharoth lies one thousand paces hubward. Now this was strange, Twoflower realized, because although he could read the message the actual letters were completely unknown to him. Somehow the message was arriving in his brain without the tedious necessity of pa.s.sing through his eyes.

He stood up and untied his now-biddable horse from a sapling. He wasn't sure which way the Hub lay, but there seemed to be an old track of sorts leading away between the trees. This Bel-Shamharoth seemed prepared to go out of his way to help stranded travelers. In any case, it was that or the wolves. Twoflower nodded decisively.

It is interesting to note that, several hours later, a couple of wolves who were following Twoflower's scent arrived in the glade. Their green eyes fell on the strange eight-legged carving-which may indeed have been a spider, or an octopus, or may yet again have been something altogether more strange-and they immediately decided that they weren't so hungry, at that.

About three miles away a failed wizard was hanging by his hands from a high branch in a beech tree.

This was the end result of five minutes of crowded activity. First, an enraged she-bear had barged through the undergrowth and taken the throat out of his horse with one swipe of her paw. Then, as Rincewind had fled the carnage, he had run into a glade in which a number of irate wolves were milling about. His instructors at Unseen University, who had despaired of Rincewind's inability to master levitation, would have then been amazed at the speed with which he reached and climbed the nearest tree, without apparently touching it.

Now there was just the matter of the snake.

It was large and green, and wound itself along the branch with reptilian patience. Rincewind wondered if it was poisonous, then chided himself for asking such a silly question. Of course it would be poisonous.

"What are you grinning for?" he asked the figure on the next branch.

I CAN'T HELP IT CAN'T HELP IT, said Death. NOW WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO LET GO? I CAN'T HANG AROUND ALL DAY CAN'T HANG AROUND ALL DAY.

"I can," said Rincewind defiantly.

The wolves cl.u.s.tered around the base of the tree looked up with interest at their next meal talking to himself.

IT WON'T HURT, said Death. If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anch.o.r.ed a s.h.i.+p.

Rincewind's arms screamed their agony at him. He scowled at the vulturelike, slightly transparent figure.

"Won't hurt?" he said. "Being torn apart by wolves won't hurt?"

He noticed another branch crossing his dangerously narrowing one a few feet away. If he could just reach it...

He swung himself forward, one hand outstretched.

The branch, already bending, did not break. It simply made a wet little sound and twisted.

Rincewind found that he was now hanging onto the end of a tongue of bark and fiber, lengthening as it peeled away from the tree. He looked down, and with a sort of fatal satisfaction realized that he would land right on the biggest wolf.

Now he was moving slowly as the bark peeled back in a longer and longer strip. The snake watched him thoughtfully.

But the growing length of bark held. Rincewind began to congratulate himself until, looking up, he saw what he had hitherto not noticed. There was the largest hornets' nest he had ever seen, hanging right in his path.

He shut his eyes tightly.

Why the troll? he asked himself. Everything else is just my usual luck, but why the troll? What the h.e.l.l is going on?

Click. It may have been a twig snapping, except that the sound appeared to be inside Rincewind's head. Click, click. And a breeze that failed to set a single leaf atremble.

The hornets' nest was ripped from the branch as the strip pa.s.sed by. It shot past the wizard's head and he watched it grow smaller as it plummeted toward the circle of upturned muzzles.

The circle suddenly closed.

The circle suddenly expanded.

The concerted yelp of pain as the pack fought to escape the furious cloud echoed among the trees. Rincewind grinned inanely.

Rincewind's elbow nudged something. It was the tree trunk. The strip had carried him right to the end of the branch. But there were no other branches. The smooth bark beside him offered no handholds.

It offered hands, though. Two were even now thrusting through the mossy bark beside him; slim hands, green as young leaves. Then a shapely arm followed, and then the hamadryad leaned right out and grasped the astonished wizard firmly and, with that vegetable strength that can send roots questing into rock, drew him into the tree. The solid bark parted like a mist, closed like a clam.

Death watched impa.s.sively.

He glanced at the cloud of mayflies that were dancing their joyful zigzags near His skull. He snapped His fingers. The insects fell out of the air. But, somehow, it wasn't quite the same.

Blind Io pushed his stack of chips across the table, glowered through such of his eyes that were currently in the room, and strode out. A few demiG.o.ds t.i.ttered. At least Offler had taken the loss of a perfectly good troll with precise, if somewhat reptilian, grace.

The Lady's last opponent s.h.i.+fted his seat until he faced her across the board.

"Lord," she said, politely.

"Lady," he acknowledged. Their eyes met.

He was a taciturn G.o.d. It was said that he had arrived in the Discworld after some terrible and mysterious incident in another Eventuality. It is of course the privilege of G.o.ds to control their apparent outward form, even to other G.o.ds; the Fate of the Discworld was currently a kindly man in late middle age, graying hair brushed neatly around features that a maiden would confidently proffer a gla.s.s of small beer to, should they appear at her back door. It was a face a kindly youth would gladly help over a stile. Except for his eyes, of course.

No deity can disguise the manner and nature of his eyes. The nature of the two eyes of the Fate of the Discworld was this: that while at a mere glance they were simply dark, a closer look would reveal-too late!-that they were but holes opening onto a blackness so remote, so deep that the watcher would feel himself inexorably drawn into the twin pools of infinite night and their terrible, wheeling stars...

The Lady coughed politely, and laid twenty-one white chips on the table. Then from her robe she took another chip, silvery and translucent and twice the size of the others. The soul of a true Hero always finds a better rate of exchange, and is valued highly by the G.o.ds.

Fate raised an eyebrow.

"And no cheating, Lady," he said.

"But who could cheat Fate?" she asked. He shrugged.

"No one. Yet everyone tries."

"And yet, again, I believe I felt you giving me a little a.s.sistance against the others?"

"But of course. So that the endgame could be the sweeter, Lady. And now..."

He reached into his gaming box and brought forth a piece, setting it down on the board with a satisfied air. The watching deities gave a collective sigh. Even the Lady was momentarily taken aback.

It was certainly ugly. The carving was uncertain, as if the craftsman's hands were shaking in horror of the thing taking shape under his reluctant fingers. It seemed to be all suckers and tentacles. And mandibles, the Lady observed. And one great eye.

"I thought such as He died out at the beginnings of Time," she said.

"Mayhap our necrotic friend was loath even to go near this one," laughed Fate. He was enjoying himself.

"It should never have been sp.a.w.ned."

"Nevertheless," said Fate gnomically. He scooped the dice into their unusual box, and then glanced up at her.

"Unless," he added, "you wish to resign...?"

She shook her head.

"Play," she said.

"You can match my stake?"

"Play."

Rincewind knew what was inside trees: wood, sap, possibly squirrels. Not a palace.

Still-the cus.h.i.+ons underneath him were definitely softer than wood, the wine in the wooden cup beside him was much tastier than sap, and there could be absolutely no comparison between a squirrel and the girl sitting before him, clasping her knees and watching him thoughtfully, unless mention was made of certain hints of furriness.

The room was high, wide and lit with a soft yellow light which came from no particular source that Rincewind could identify. Through gnarled and knotted archways he could see other rooms, and what looked like a very large winding staircase. And it had looked a perfectly normal tree from the outside, too.

The girl was green-flesh green. Rincewind could be absolutely certain about that, because all she was wearing was a medallion around her neck. Her long hair had a faintly mossy look about it. Her eyes had no pupils and were a luminous green. Rincewind wished he had paid more attention to anthropology lectures at University.

She had said nothing. Apart from indicating the couch and offering him the wine she had done no more than sit watching him, occasionally rubbing a deep scratch on her arm.

Rincewind hurriedly recalled that a dryad was so linked to her tree that she suffered wounds in sympathy- "Sorry about that," he said quickly. "It was just an accident. I mean, there were these wolves, and-"

"You had to climb my tree, and I rescued you," said the dryad smoothly. "How lucky for you. And for your friend, perhaps?"

"Friend?"

"The little man with the magic box," said the dryad.

"Oh, sure, him," said Rincewind vaguely. "Yeah. I hope he's okay."

"He needs your help."

"He usually does. Did he make it to a tree, too?"

"He made it to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth."

Rincewind choked on his wine. His ears tried to crawl into his head in terror of the syllables they had just heard. The Soul Eater! Before he could stop them the memories came galloping back. Once, while a student of practical magic at Unseen University, and for a bet, he'd slipped into the little room off the main library-the room with walls covered in protective lead pentagrams, the room no one was allowed to occupy for more than four minutes and thirty-two seconds, which was a figure arrived at after two hundred years of cautious experimentation...

He had gingerly opened the Book, which was chained to the octiron pedestal in the middle of the rune-strewn floor not lest someone steal it, but lest it escape; for it was the Octavo, so full of magic that it had its own vague sentience. One spell had indeed leapt from the crackling pages and lodged itself in the dark recesses of his brain. And, apart from knowing that it was one of the Eight Great Spells, no one would know which one until he said it. Even Rincewind did not. But he could feel it sometimes, sidling out of sight behind his Ego, biding its time...

On the front of the Octavo had been a representation of Bel-Shamharoth. He was not Evil, for even Evil has a certain vitality-Bel-Shamharoth was the flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side.

"The Soul Eater. His number lyeth between seven and nine; it is twice four," Rincewind quoted, his mind frozen with fear. "Oh no. Where's the Temple?"

"Hubward, toward the center of the forest," said the dryad. "It is very old."

"But who would be so stupid as to wors.h.i.+p Bel-him? I mean, devils yes yes, but he's the Soul Eater-"

"There were-certain advantages. And the race that used to live in these parts had strange notions."

"What happened to them, then?"

"I did say they used used to live in these parts." The dryad stood up and stretched out her hand. "Come. I am Druellae. Come with me and watch your friend's fate. It should be interesting." to live in these parts." The dryad stood up and stretched out her hand. "Come. I am Druellae. Come with me and watch your friend's fate. It should be interesting."

"I'm not sure that-" began Rincewind.

The dryad turned her green eyes on him.

"Do you believe you have a choice?" she asked.

A staircase broad as a major highway wound up through the tree, with vast rooms leading off at every landing. The sourceless yellow light was everywhere. There was also a sound like-Rincewind concentrated, trying to identify it-like far off thunder, or a distant waterfall.

"It's the tree," said the dryad shortly.

"What's it doing?" said Rincewind.

"Living."

"I wondered about that. I mean, are we really in a tree? Have I been reduced in size? From outside it looked narrow enough for me to put my arms around."

"It is."

"Um, but here I am inside it?"

"You are."

"Um," said Rincewind.

Druellae laughed.

"I can see into your mind, false wizard! Am I not a dryad? Do you not know that what you belittle by the name tree tree is but the mere four-dimensional a.n.a.logue of a whole multidimensional universe which-no, I can see you do not. I should have realized that you weren't a real wizard when I saw you didn't have a staff." is but the mere four-dimensional a.n.a.logue of a whole multidimensional universe which-no, I can see you do not. I should have realized that you weren't a real wizard when I saw you didn't have a staff."