The Colour of Magic

hunting down deer and, sometimes, other men. Twoflower touched one tapestry gingerly. The fabric crumbled instantly in the hot dry air, leaving only a dangling mesh where some threads had been plaited with fine gold wire.

‘I wonder why they left all this?’ he said.

I don’t know, said a polite voice in his head.

He turned and looked up into the scaley horse face above him.

‘What is your name, dragon?’ said Twoflower.

I don’t know.

‘I think I shall call you Ninereeds.’

That is my name, then.

They waded through the all-encroaching dust in a series of huge, dark-pillared halls which had been carved out of the solid rock. With some cunning too; from floor to ceiling the walls were a mass of statues, gargoyles, bas- reliefs and fluted columns that cast weirdly-moving shadows when the dragon gave an obliging illumination at Twoflower’s request. They crossed the lengthy galleries and vast carven amphitheatres, all awash with deep soft dust and completely uninhabited. No-one had come to these dead caverns in centuries.

Then he saw the path, leading away into yet another dark tunnel mouth. Someone had been using it regularly, and recently. It was a deep narrow trail in the grey blanket.

Twoflower followed it. It led through still more lofty halls and winding corridors quite big enough for a dragon [26]. They ended in a pair of green bronze doors, each so high that they disappeared into the gloom. In front of Twoflower, at chest height, was a small handle shaped like a brass dragon.

When he touched it the doors swung open instantly and with a disconcerting noiselessness.

Instantly sparks crackled in Twoflower’s hair and there was a sudden gust of hot dry wind that didn’t disturb the dust in the way that ordinary wind should but, instead, whipped it up momentarily into unpleasantly half-living shapes before it settled again. In Twoflower’s ears came the strange shrill twittering of the Things locked in the distant dungeon Dimensions, out beyond the fragile lattice of time and space. Shadows appeared where there was nothing to cause them. The air buzzed like a hive.

In short, there was a vast discharge of magic going on around him.

The chamber beyond the door was lit by a pale green glow. Stacked around the walls, each on its own marble shelf, were tier upon tier of coffins. In the centre of the room was a stone chair on a raised dais, and it contained a slumped figure which did not move but said, in a brittle old voice, ‘Come in, young man.’

Twoflower stepped forward. The figure in the seat was human, as far as he could make out in the murky light, but there was something about the awkward way it was sprawled in the chair that made him glad he couldn’t see it any clearer.

‘I’m dead, you know,’ came a voice from what Twoflower fervently hoped was a head, in conversational tones. ‘I expect you can tell.’

‘Um,’ said Twoflower. ‘Yes.’ He began to back away.

‘Obvious, isn’t it?’ agreed the voice. ‘You’d be Twoflower, wouldn’t you? Or is that later?’

‘Later?’ said Twoflower. ‘Later than what?’ He stopped.

‘Well,’ said the voice. ‘You see, one of the advantages of being dead is that one is released as it were from the bonds of time and therefore I can see everything that has happened or will happen, all at the same time except that of course I now know that Time does not, for all practical purposes, exist.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a disadvantage,’ said Twoflower.

‘You don’t think so? Imagine every moment being at one and the same time a distant memory and a nasty surprise and you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, I now recall what it was I am about to tell you. Or have I already done so? That’s a fine looking dragon, by the way. Or don’t I say that, yet?’

‘It is rather good. It just turned up,’ said Twoflower.

‘It turned up?’ said the voice. ‘You summoned it!’

‘Yes, well, all I did—’

‘You have the Power!’

‘All I did was think of it.’

‘That’s what the Power is! Have I already told you that I am Greicha the First? Or is that next? I’m sorry, but I haven’t had too much experience of transcendence. Anyway, yes—the Power. It summons dragons, you know.’

‘I think you already told me that,’ said Twoflower.

‘Did I? I certainly intended to,’ said the dead man.

‘But how does it? I’ve been thinking about dragons all my life, but this is the first time one has turned up.’

‘Oh well, you see, the truth of the matter is that dragons have never existed as you [27] understand existence. I’m talking about the true dragon, draconis nobilis, you understand; the swamp dragon, draconis vulgaris, is a base creature and not worth our consideration. The true dragon, on the other hand, is a creature of such refinement of spirit that they can only take on form in this world if they are conceived by the most skilled imagination. And even then the said imagination must be in some place heavily impregnated with magic, which helps to weaken the walls between the world of the seen and unseen. Then the dragons pop through, as it were, and impress their form on this world’s possibility matrix. I was very good at it when I was alive. I could imagine up to, oh, five hundred dragons at a time. Now Liessa, the most skilled of my children, can barely imagine fifty rather nondescript creatures. So much for a progressive education. She doesn’t really believe in them. That’s why her dragons are rather boring—while yours,’ said the voice of Greicha, ‘is almost as good as some of mine used to be. A sight for sore eyes, not that I have any to speak of now.’

Twoflower said hurriedly, ‘You keep saying you’re dead …’

‘Well?’

‘Well, the dead, er, they, you know, don’t talk much. As a rule.’

‘I used to be an exceptionally powerful wizard. My daughter poisoned me, of course. It is the generally accepted method of succession in our family, but,’ the corpse sighed, or at least a sigh came from the air a few feet above it, ‘it soon became obvious that none of my three children is sufficiently powerful to wrest the lordship of the Wyrmberg from the other two. A most unsatisfactory arrangement. A kingdom like ours has to have one ruler. So I resolved to remain alive in an unofficial capacity, which of course annoys them all immensely. I won’t give my children the satisfaction of burying me until there is only one of them left to perform the ceremony.’ There was a nasty wheezing noise. Twoflower decided that it was meant to be a chuckle.

‘So it was one of them that kidnapped us?’ said Twoflower.

‘Liessa,’ said the dead wizard’s voice. ‘My daughter. Her power is strongest, you know. My sons’ dragons are incapable of flying more than a few miles before they fade.’

‘Fade? I did notice that we could see through the one that brought us here,’ said Twoflower. ‘I thought that was a bit odd.’

‘Of course,’ said Greicha. ‘The Power only works near the Wyrmberg. It’s the inverse square law, you know. At least, I think it is. As the dragons fly further away they begin to dwindle. Otherwise my little Liessa would be ruling the whole world by now, if I know anything about it. But I can see I mustn’t keep you. I expect you’ll be wanting to rescue your friend.’

Twoflower gaped. ‘Hrun?’ he said.

‘Not him. The skinny wizard. My son Lio!rt is trying to hack him to pieces. I admired the way you rescued him. Will, I mean.’

Twoflower drew himself up to his full height, an easy task. ‘Where is he?’ he said, heading towards the door with what he hoped was an heroic stride.

‘Just follow the pathway in the dust,’ said the voice. ‘Liessa comes to see me sometimes. She still comes to see her old dad, my little girl. She was the only one with the strength of character to murder me. A chip off the old block. Good luck, by the way. I seem to recall I said that. Will say it now, I mean.’

The rambling voice got lost in a maze of tenses as Twoflower ran along the dead tunnels, with the dragon