Sourcery

'Why's he covered in snow?'

She stopped and turned around, arms thrust into her sides, one foot tapping impatiently on the damp cobbles.

'Rincewind, I've known you for an hour and I'm astonished you've lived even that long!'

'Yes, but I have, haven't I? I've got a sort of talent for it. Ask anyone. I'm an addict.'

'Addicted to what?'

'Life. I got hooked on it at an early age and I don't want to give it up and take it from me, this doesn't look right!'

Conina looked back at the figure surrounded by the glowing blue aura. It seemed to be looking at something in its hands.

Snow was settling on its shoulder like really bad dandruff. Terminal dandruff. Rincewind had an instinct for these things, and he had a deep suspicion that the man had gone where shampoo would be no help at all.

They sidled along a glistening wall.

'There's something very strange about him,' she conceded.

'You mean the way he's got his own private blizzard?'

'Doesn't seem to upset him. He's smiling.'

'A frozen grin, I'd call it.'

The man's icicle-hung hands had been taking the lid off the box, and the glow from the hat's octarines shone up into a pair of greedy eyes that were already heavily rimed with frost.

'Know him?' said Conina.

Rincewind shrugged. 'I've seen him around,' he said. 'He's called Larry the Fox or Fezzy the Stoat or something. Some sort of rodent, anyway. He just steals things. He's harmless.'

'He looks incredibly cold.' Conina shivered.

'I expect he's gone to a warmer place. Don't you think we should shut the box?'

It's perfectly safe now, said the hat's voice from inside the glow. And so perish all enemies of wizardry.

Rincewind wasn't about to trust what a hat said.

'We need something to shut the lid,' he muttered. 'A knife or something. You wouldn't have one, would you?'

'Look the other way,' Conina warned.

There was a rustle and another gust of perfume.

'You can look back now.'

Rincewind was handed a twelve-inch throwing knife. He took it gingerly. Little particles of metal glinted on its edge.

'Thanks.' He turned back. 'Not leaving you short, am I?'

'I have others.'

'I'll bet.'

Rincewind reached out gingerly with the knife. As it neared the leather box its blade went