Withel stormed across the floor, his face a mask of rage. Rincewind took careful aim and caught the thief full in the chest with a bag of gold.
But now Ymor was shouting, and pointing an accusing finger. A raven swooped down from its perch in the rafters and dived at the wizard, talons open and gleaming.
It didn’t make it. At about the halfway point the Luggage leapt from its bed of splinters, gaped briefly in mid-air, and snapped shut.
It landed lightly. Rincewind saw its lid open again, slightly. Just far enough for a tongue, large as a palm leaf, red as mahogany, to lick up a few errant feathers.
At the same moment the giant candlewheel fell from the ceiling, plunging the room into gloom. Rincewind, coiling himself like a spring, gave a standing jump and grasped a beam, swinging himself up into the relative safety of the roof with a strength that amazed him.
‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ said a voice by his ear.
Down below, thieves, assassins, trolls and merchants all realised at about the same moment that they were in a room made treacherous of foothold by gold coins and containing something, among the suddenly menacing shapes in the semi-darkness, that was absolutely horrible. As one they made for the door, but had two dozen different recollections of its exact position.
High above the chaos Rincewind stared at Twoflower.
‘Did you cut the lights down?’ he hissed.
‘Yes.’
‘How come you’re up here?’
‘I thought I’d better not get in everyone’s way.’
Rincewind considered this. There didn’t seem to be much he could say. Twoflower added: ‘A real brawl! Better than anything I’d imagined! Do you think I ought to thank them? Or did you arrange it?’
Rincewind looked at him blankly. ‘I think we ought to be getting down now,’ he said hollowly. ‘Everyone’s gone.’
He dragged Twoflower across the littered floor and up the steps. They burst out into the tail end of the night. There were still a few stars but the moon was down, and there was a faint grey glow to rimward. Most important, the street was empty.
Rincewind sniffed.
‘Can you smell oil?’ he said.
Then Withel stepped out of the shadows and tripped him up.
At the top of the cellar steps Broadman knelt down and fumbled in his tinderbox. It turned out to be damp.
‘I’ll kill that bloody cat,’ he muttered, and groped for the spare box that was normally on the ledge by the door. It was missing. Broadman said a bad word.
A lighted taper appeared in mid-air, right beside him.
HERE, TAKE THIS.
‘Thanks,’ said Broadman.
DON’T MENTION IT.
Broadman went to throw the taper down the steps. His hand paused in mid-air. He looked at the taper, his brow furrowing. Then he turned around and held the taper up to illuminate the scene. It didn’t shed much light, but it did give the darkness a shape …
‘Oh, no—’ he breathed.
BUT YES, said Death.
Rincewind rolled.
For a moment he thought Withel was going to spit him where he lay. But it was worse than that. He was waiting for him to get up.
‘I see you have a sword, wizard,’ he said quietly. ‘I suggest you rise, and we shall see how well you use it.’
Rincewind stood up as slowly as he dared, and drew from his belt the short sword he had taken from the guard a few hours and a hundred years ago. It was a short blunt affair compared to Withel’s hair-thin rapier.
‘But I don’t know how to use a sword,’ he wailed.
‘Good.’
‘You know that wizards can’t be killed by edged weapons?’ said Rincewind desperately.
Withel smiled coldly. ‘So I have heard,’ he said. ‘I look forward to putting it to the test.’ He lunged.
Rincewind caught the thrust by sheer luck, jerked his hand away in shock, deflected the second stroke by coincidence, and took the third one through his robe at heart-height.
There was a clink.
Withel’s snarl of triumph died in his throat. He drew the sword out and prodded again at the wizard, who was rigid with terror and guilt. There was another clink, and gold coins began to drop out of the hem of the wizard’s robe.
‘So you bleed gold, do you?’ hissed Withel. ‘But have you got gold concealed in that raggedy beard, you little—’
As his sword went back for his final sweep the sullen glow that had been growing in the doorway of the Broken Drum flickered, dimmed, and erupted into a roaring fireball that sent the walls billowing outward and carried the roof a hundred feet into the air before bursting through it, in a gout of red-hot tiles.
Withel stared at the boiling flames, unnerved. And Rincewind leapt. He ducked under the thief’s sword arm and brought his own blade around in an arc so incompetently misjudged that it hit the man flat-first and jolted out of the wizard’s hand. Sparks and droplets of flaming oil rained down as Withel reached out with both gauntleted hands and grabbed Rincewind’s neck, forcing him down.
‘You did this!’ he screamed. ‘You and your box of trickery.’
His thumb found Rincewind’s windpipe. This is it, the wizard thought. Wherever I’m going, it can’t be worse than here …
‘Excuse me,’ said Twoflower.
Rincewind felt the grip lessen. And now Withel was slowly getting up, a look of absolute hatred on his face.
A glowing ember landed on the wizard. He brushed it off hurriedly, and scrambled to his feet.
Twoflower was behind Withel, holding the man’s own needle-sharp sword with the point resting in the small of the thief’s back. Rincewind’s eyes narrowed. He reached into his robe, then withdrew his hand bunched into a fist.
‘Don’t move,’ he said.
‘Am I doing this right?’ asked Twoflower anxiously.
‘He says he’ll skewer your liver if you move,’ Rincewind translated freely.
‘I doubt it,’ said Withel.
‘Bet?’
‘No.’
As Withel tensed himself to turn on the tourist Rincewind lashed out and caught the thief on the jaw. Withel stared at him in amazement for a moment, and then quietly toppled into the mud.
The wizard uncurled his stinging fist and the roll of gold coins slipped between his throbbing fingers. He looked down at the recumbent thief.
‘Good grief,’ he gasped.
He looked up and yelled as another ember landed on his neck. Flames were racing along the rooftops on either side of the street. All around him people were hurling possessions from windows and dragging horses from smoking stables. Another explosion in the white-hot volcano that was the Drum sent a whole marble mantelpiece scything overhead.
‘The Widdershin Gate’s the nearest!’ Rincewind shouted above the crackle of collapsing rafters. ‘Come on!’
