Sourcery

He reached out for Rincewind's shoulder just as something went past very high overhead, making a noise like a flock of geese on nitrous oxide. It disappeared into the desert behind them. Then there was a sound that would have set false teeth on edge, a flash of green light, and a thump.

'I'll wake him up,' said Conina. 'You get the carpet.'

She clambered over the ring of rocks and took the sleeping wizard gently by the arm, and this would have been a textbook way of waking a somnambulist if Rincewind hadn't dropped the rock he was carrying on his foot.

He opened his eyes.

'Where am I?' he said.

'On the beach. You've been ... er ... dreaming.'

Rincewind blinked at the mist, the sky, the circle of stones, Conina, the circle of stones again, and finally back at the sky.

'What's been happening?' he said.

'Some sort of magical fireworks.'

'Oh. It's started, then.'

He lurched unsteadily out of the circle, in a way that suggested to Conina that perhaps he wasn't quite awake yet, and staggered back towards the remains of the fire. He walked a few steps and then appeared to remember something.

He looked down at his foot, and said, 'Ow.'

He'd almost reached the fire when the blast from the last spell reached them. It had been aimed at the tower in Al Khali, which was twenty miles away, and by now the wavefront was extremely diffuse. It was hardly affecting the nature of things as it surged over the dunes with a faint sucking noise; the fire burned red and green for a second, one of Nijel's sandals turned into a small and irritated badger, and a pigeon flew out of the Seriph's turban.

Then it was past and boiling out over the sea.

'What was that?' said Nijel. He kicked the badger, who was sniffing at his foot.

'Hmm?' said Rincewind.

'That!'

'Oh, that,' said Rincewind. 'Just the backwash of a spell. They probably hit the tower in Al Khali.'

'It must have been pretty big to affect us here.'

'It probably was.'

'Hey, that was my palace,' said Creosote weakly. 'I mean, I know it was a lot, but it was all I had.'

'Sorry.'

'But there were people in the city!'

They're probably all right,' said Rincewind.

'Good.'

'Whatever they are.'

'What?'

Conina grabbed his arm. 'Don't shout at him,' she said. 'He's not himself.'

Ah,' said Creosote dourly, 'an improvement.'