But he had got in, once, long ago. Rincewind the student had pushed at the door and it had swung open, and then a moment later the Spell had jumped into his mind and ruined his life.
‘Look,’ said a voice from behind the grille, as kindly as it could manage. ‘Just go and find us a wizard, there’s a good fellow.’
Rincewind took a deep breath.
‘Stand back,’ he rasped.
‘What?’
‘Find something to hide behind,’ he barked, with his voice shaking only slightly. ‘You too,’ he said to Bethan and Twoflower.
‘But you can’t—’
‘I mean it!’
‘He means it,’ said Twoflower. ‘That little vein on the side of his forehead, you know, when it throbs like that, well—’
‘Shut up!’
Rincewind raised one arm uncertainly and pointed it at the door.
There was total silence.
Oh gods, he thought, what happens now?
In the blackness at the back of his mind the Spell shifted uneasily.
Rincewind tried to get in tune or whatever with the metal of the lock. If he could sow discord amongst its atoms so that they flew apart—
Nothing happened.
He swallowed hard, and turned his attention to the wood. It was old and nearly fossilised, and probably wouldn’t burn even if soaked in oil and dropped into a furnace. He tried anyway, explaining to the ancient molecules that they should try to jump up and down to keep warm—
In the strained silence of his own mind he glared at the Spell, which looked very sheepish.
He considered the air around the door itself, how it might best be twisted into weird shapes so that the door existed in another set of dimensions entirely.
The door sat there, defiantly solid.
Sweating, his mind beginning the endless walk up to the blackboard in front of the grinning class, he turned desperately to the lock again. It must be made of little bits of metal, not very heavy—
From the grille came the faintest of sounds. It was the noise of wizards untensing themselves and shaking their heads.
Someone whispered,
There was a tiny grinding noise, and a click.
Rincewind’s face was a mask. Perspiration dripped off his chin.
There was another click, and the grinding of reluctant spindles. Trymon had oiled the lock, but the oil had been soaked up by the rust and dust of years, and the only way for a wizard to move something by magic, unless he can harness some external movement, is to use the leverage of his mind itself.
Rincewind was trying very hard to prevent his brain being pushed out of his ears.
The lock rattled. Metal rods flexed in pitted groves, gave in, pushed levers.
Levers clicked, notches engaged. There was a long drawn-out grinding noise that left Rincewind on his knees.
The door swung open on pained hinges. The wizards sidled out cautiously.
Twoflower and Bethan helped Rincewind to his feet. He stood grey-faced and swaying.
‘Not bad,’ said one of the wizards, looking closely at the lock. ‘A little slow, perhaps.’
‘Never mind that!’ snapped Jiglad Wert. ‘Did you three see anyone on the way down here?’
‘No,’ said Twoflower.
‘Someone has stolen the Octavo.’
Rincewind’s head jerked up. His eyes focussed.
‘Who?’
‘Trymon—’
Rincewind swallowed. ‘Tall man?’ he said. ‘Fair hair, looks a bit like a ferret?’
‘Now that you mention it—’
‘He was in my class,’ said Rincewind. ‘They always said he’d go a long way.’
‘He’ll go a lot further if he opens the book,’ said one of the wizards, who was hastily rolling a cigarette in shaking fingers.
‘Why?’ said Twoflower. ‘What will happen?’
The wizards looked at one another.
‘It’s an ancient secret, handed down from mage to mage, and we can’t pass it on to knowlessmen,’ said Wert.
‘Oh, go on,’ said Twoflower.
‘Oh well, it probably doesn’t matter any more. One mind can’t hold all the spells. It’ll break down, and leave a hole.’
‘What? In his head?’
‘Um. No. In the fabric of the Universe,’ said Wert. ‘He might think he can control it by himself, but—’
They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow vibration, then rose suddenly to a knife-edge whine that bypassed the eardrums and bored straight into the brain. It sounded like a human voice singing, or chanting, or screaming, but there were deeper and more horrible harmonics.
The wizards went pale. Then, as one man, they turned and ran up the steps.
There were crowds outside the building. Some people were holding torches, others had stopped in the act of piling kindling around the walls. But everyone was staring up at the Tower of Art.
The wizards pushed their way through the unheeding bodies, and turned to look up.
The sky was full of moons. Each one was three times bigger than the Disc’s own moon, and each was in shadow except for a pink crescent where it caught the light of the star.
But in front of everything the top of the Tower of Art was an incandescent fury. Shapes could be dimly glimpsed within it, but there was nothing reassuring about them. The sound had changed now to the wasplike buzzing, magnified a million times.
Some of the wizards sank to their knees.
‘He’s done it,’ said Wert, shaking his head. ‘He’s opened a pathway.’
‘Are those things demons?’ said Twoflower.
‘Oh,
‘They’re worse than anything we can possibly imagine,’ said Panter.
‘I can imagine some pretty bad things,’ said Rincewind.
‘These are worse.’
‘Oh.’
‘And what do you propose to do about it?’ said a clear voice.
They turned. Bethan was glaring at them, arms folded.
‘Pardon?’ said Wert.
‘You’re wizards, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, get on with it.’
‘What, tackle that?’ said Rincewind.
‘Know anyone else?’
Wert pushed forward. ‘Madam, I don’t think you quite understand—’
‘The Dungeons Dimensions will empty into our Universe, right?’ said Bethan.
‘Well, yes—’
‘We’ll all be eaten by things with tentacles for faces, right?’
‘Nothing so pleasant, but—’
‘And you’re just going to let it happen?’
‘Listen,’ said Rincewind. ‘It’s all over, do you see? You can’t put the spells back in the book, you can’t unsay
