IT WOULD BE A MILLION TO ONE CHANCE, said Death. EXACTLY A MILLION TO ONE CHANCE.
“Oh,” said the Bursar, intensely relieved. “Oh dear. What a shame.” He brightened up considerably. “Of course, there’s all the noise. But, unfortunately, I expect he won’t survive for long.”
THIS COULD BE THE CASE, said Death blandly. I AM SURE, THOUGH, THAT YOU WOULD NOT WISH ME TO MAKE A PRACTICE OF ISSUING DEFINITIVE STATEMENTS IN THIS FIELD.
“No! No, of course not,” said the Bursar hurriedly. “Right. Well, many thanks. Poor chap. What a great pity. Still, can’t be helped. Perhaps we should be philosophical about these things.”
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD.
“And we had better not keep you,” the Bursar added politely.
THANK YOU.
“Goodbye.”
BE SEEING YOU.
In fact the noise stopped just before breakfast. The Librarian was the only one unhappy about it. Rincewind had been his assistant and his friend, and was a good man when it came to peeling a banana. He had also been uniquely good at running away from things. He was not, the Librarian considered, the type to be easily caught.
There had probably been an unusual conjunction of circumstances.
That was a far more likely explanation.
There had been an unusual conjunction of circumstances.
By exactly a million to one chance there had been someone watching, studying, looking for the right tools for a special job.
And here was Rincewind.
It was almost too easy.
So Rincewind opened his eyes. There was a ceiling above him; if it was the floor, then he was in trouble.
So far, so good.
He cautiously felt the surface he was lying on. It was grainy, woody in fact, with the odd nail-hole. A human sort of surface.
His ears picked up the crackle of a fire and a bubbling noise, source unknown.
His nose, feeling that it was being left out of things, hastened to report a whiff of brimstone.
Right. So where did that leave him? Lying on a rough wooden floor in a firelit room with something that bubbled and gave off sulphurous smells. In his unreal, dreamy state he felt quite pleased at this process of deduction.
What else?
Oh, yes.
He opened his mouth and screamed and screamed and screamed.
This made him feel slightly better.
He lay there a bit longer. Through the tumbled heap of his memories came the recollections of mornings in bed when he was a little boy, desperately subdividing the passing time into smaller and smaller units to put off the terrible moment of getting up and having to face all the problems of life such as, in this case, who he was, where he was, and why he was.
“What are you?” said a voice on the edge of his consciousness.
“I was coming to that,” muttered Rincewind.
The room oscillated into focus as he pushed himself up on his elbows.
“I warn you,” said the voice, which seemed to be coming from a table, “I am protected by many powerful amulets.”
“Jolly good,” said Rincewind. “I wish I was.”
Details began to distil out of the blur. It was a long, low room, one end of which was entirely occupied by an enormous fireplace. A bench all down one wall contained a selection of glassware apparently created by a drunken glassblower with hiccups, and inside its byzantine coils coloured liquids seethed and bubbled. A skeleton hung from a hook in a relaxed fashion. On a perch beside it someone had nailed a stuffed bird. Whatever sins it had committed in life, it hadn’t deserved what the taxidermist had done to it.
Rincewind’s gaze then swept across the floor. It was obvious that it was the only sweeping the floor had had for some time. Only around him had space been cleared among the debris of broken glass and overturned retorts for— A magic circle.
It looked an extremely thorough job. Whoever had chalked it was clearly very aware that its purpose was to divide the universe into two bits, the inside and the outside.
Rincewind was, of course, inside.
“Ah,” he said, feeling a familiar and almost comforting sense of helpless dread sweep over him.
“I adjure and conjure thee against all aggressive acts, o demon of the pit,” said the voice from, Rincewind now realised, behind the table.
“Fine, fine,” said Rincewind quickly. “That’s all right by me. Er. It isn’t possible that there has been the teeniest little mistake here, could there?”
“Avaunt!”
“Right!” said Rincewind. He looked around him desperately. “How?”
“Don’t you think you can lure me to my doom with thy lying tongue, o fiend of Shamharoth,” said the table. “I am learned in the ways of demons. Obey my every command or I will return thee unto the boiling hell from which you came. Thou came, sorry. Thou came’st, in fact. And I really mean it.”
The figure stepped out. It was quite short, and most of it was hidden by a variety of charms, amulets and talismans which, even if not effective against magic, would probably have protected it against a tolerably determined sword thrust. It wore glasses and had a hat with long sidepieces that gave it the air of a short-sighted spaniel.
It held a sword in one shaking hand. It was so heavily etched with sigils that it was beginning to bend.
“Boiling hell, did you say?” said Rincewind weakly.
“Absolutely. Where the screams of anguish and the tortured torments—”
“Yes, yes, you’ve made your point,” said Rincewind. “Only, you see, the thing is, in fact, that I am not a demon. So if you would just let me out?”
“I am not fooled by thy outer garb, demon,” said the figure. In a more normal voice it added, “Anyway, demons always lie. Well-known fact.”
“It is?” said Rincewind, clutching at this straw. “In that case, then — I am a demon.”
“Aha! Condemned out of your own mouth!”
“Look, I don’t have to put up with this,” said Rincewind. “I don’t know who you are or what’s happening, but I’m going to have a drink, all right?”
He went to walk out of the circle, and went rigid with shock as sparks crackled up from the runic inscriptions and earthed themselves all over his body.
“Thou mays’nt — thou maysn’t — thou mays’n’t—” The conjurer of demons gave up. “Look, you can’t step over the circle until I release you, right? I mean, I don’t want to be unpleasant, it’s just that if I let you out of the circle you will be able to resume your true shape, and a pretty awful shape it is too, I expect. Avaunt!” he added, feeling that he wasn’t keeping up the tone.
“All right. I’m avaunting. I’m avaunting,” said Rincewind, rubbing his elbow. “But I’m still not a demon.”
“How come you answered the conjuration, then? I suppose you just happened to be passing through the paranatural dimensions, eh?”
“Something like that, I think. It’s all a bit blurred.”
“Pull the other one, it has got bells on.” The conjurer leaned his sword against a lectern on which a heavy book, dripping bookmarks, lay open. Then he did a mad little jig on the floor.
“It’s worked!” he said. “Heheh!” He caught sight of Rincewind’s horrified gaze and pulled himself together. He gave an embarrassed cough, and stepped up to the lectern.
“I really am not—” Rincewind began.
“I had this list here somewhere,” said the figure. “Let’s see, now. Oh, yes. I command you — thee, I mean — to, ah, grant me three wishes. Yes. I want mastery of the kingdoms of the world, I want to meet the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, and I want to live for ever.” He gave Rincewind an encouraging look.