days magic in its raw state had been widely available, and had been eagerly utilized by the First Men in their war against the Gods.
The precise origins of the Mage Wars have been lost in the fogs of Time, but disc philosophers agree that the First Men, shortly after their creation, understandably lost their temper. And great and pyrotechnic were the battles that followed—the sun wheeled across the sky, the seas boiled, weird storms ravaged the land, small white pigeons mysteriously appeared in people’s clothing, and the very stability of the disc (carried as it was through space on the backs of four giant turtle-riding elephants) was threatened. This resulted in stern action by the Old High Ones, to whom even the Gods themselves are answerable. The Gods were banished to high places, men were re-created a good deal smaller, and much of the old wild magic was sucked out of the earth.
That did not solve the problem of those places on the disc which, during the wars, had suffered a direct hit by a spell. The magic faded away slowly, over the millenia, releasing as it decayed myriads of sub-astral particles that severely distorted the reality around it…
Rincewind, Twoflower and Hrun stared at the coin.
“Edge it is,” said Hrun. “Well, you’re a wizard. So what?”
“I don’t do—that sort of spell.”
“You mean you can’t.”
Rincewind ignored this, because it was true. “Try it again,” he suggested.
Hrun pulled out a fistful of coins.
The first two landed in the usual manner. So did the fourth. The third landed on its edge and balanced there. The fifth turned into a small yellow caterpillar and crawled away. The sixth, upon reaching its zenith, vanished with a sharp “spang!”
A moment later there was a small thunder clap.
“Hey, that one was silver,” exclaimed Hrun, rising to his feet and staring upwards. “Bring it back!”
“I don’t know where it’s gone, said Rincewind wearily. “it’s probably still accelerating. The ones I tried this morning didn’t come down, anyway.”
Hrun was still staring into the sky.
“What?” said Twoflower.
Rincewind sighed. He had been dreading this.
“We’ve strayed into a zone with a high magical index,” he said. “Don’t ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we’re feeling the after-effects.”
“Precisely,” said a passing bush.
Hrun’s head jerked down.
“You mean this is one of those places?” he asked.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“Right,” agreed Rincewind. “if we retrace our steps we might make it. We can stop every mile or so and toss a coin.”
He stood up urgently and started stuffing things into his saddlebags.
“What?” said Twoflower.
Rincewind stopped. “Look,” he snapped. “Just don’t argue. Come on.”
“It looks alright,” said Twoflower. “Just a bit underpopulated that’s all…”
“Yes,” said Rincewind. “Odd, isn’t it? Come on!”
There was a noise high above them, like a strip of leather being slapped on a wet rock. Something glassy and indistinct passed over Rincewind’s head, throwing up a cloud of ashes from the fire, and the pig carcass took off from the spit and rocketed into the sky.
It banked to avoid a clump of trees, righted itself, roared around in a tight circle, and headed hubwards leaving a trail of hot pork-fat droplets.
“What are they doing now?” asked the old man.
The young woman glanced at the scrying glass. “Heading rimwards at speed,” she reported. “By the way— they’ve still got that box on legs.”
The old man chuckled, an oddly disturbing sound in the dark and dusty crypt. “Sapient pearwood,” he said. “Remarkable. Yes, I think we will have that. Please see to it, my dear—before they go beyond your power, perhaps?”
“Silence! Or—”
“Or what, Liessa?” said the old man (in this dim light there was something odd about the way he was slumped in the stone chair). “You killed me once already, remember?”
She snorted and stood up, tossing back her hair scornfully. It was red, flecked with gold. Erect, Liessa Wyrmbidder was entirely a magnificent sight. She was also almost naked, except for a couple of mere scraps of the lightest chain mail and riding boots of iridescent dragonhide. In one boot was thrust a riding crop, unusual in that it was as long as a spear and tipped with tiny steel barbs.
“My power will be quite sufficient,” she said.
The indistinct figure appeared to nod, or at least to wobble. “So you keep assuring me,” he said.
Liessa snorted, and strode out of the hall.
Her father did not bother to watch her go. One reason for this was, of course, that since he had been dead for three months his eyes were in any case not in the best of condition. The other was that as a wizard—even a dead wizard of the fifteenth grade, his optic nerves had long since become attuned to seeing into levels and dimensions far removed from common reality, and were therefore somewhat inefficient at observing the merely mundane [6]. Besides, since he was now suspended in the narrow space between the living world and the dark shadow-world of Death he could survey the whole of Causality itself. That was why, apart from a mild hope that this time his wretched daughter would get herself killed, he did not devote his considerable powers to learning more about the three travellers galloping desperately out of his realm.
Several hundred yards away, Liessa was in a strange humour as she strode down the worn steps that led into the hollow heart of the Wyrmberg followed by half a dozen Riders. Would this be the opportunity? Perhaps here was the key to break the deadlock, the key to the throne of the Wyrmberg. It was rightfully hers, of course; but tradition said that only a man could rule the Wyrmberg. That irked Liessa, and when she was angry the Power flowed stronger and the dragons were especially big and ugly.
If she had a man, things would be different Someone who, for preference, was a big strapping lad but short on brains. Someone who would do what he was told.
The biggest of the three now fleeing the dragonlands might do. And if it turned out that he wouldn’t, then dragons were always hungry and needed to be fed regularly. She could see to it that they got ugly.
Uglier than usual, anyway.
The stairway passed through a stone arch and ended in a narrow ledge near the roof of the great cavern where the Wyrms roosted.
Sunbeams from the myriad entrances around the walls cries-crossed the dusty gloom like amber rods in which a million golden insects had been preserved. Below, they revealed nothing but a thin haze. Above…
The walking rings started so close to Liessa’s head that she could reach up and touch one. They stretched away in their thousands across the upturned acres of the cavern roof. It had taken a score of masons a score of years to hammer the pitons for all those, hanging from their work as they progressed. Yet they were as nothing compared to the eighty-eight major rings that clustered near the apex of the dome. A further fifty had been lost in the old days, as they were swung into place by teams of sweating slaves (and there had been slaves aplenty, in the first days of the Power) and the great rings had gone crashing into the depths, dragging their unfortunate manipulators with them.
But eighty-eight had been installed, huge as rainbows, rusty as blood. From them the dragons sense Liessa’s presence. Air swishes around the cavern as eighty-eight pairs of wings unfold like a complicated puzzle. Great heads with green, multi-faceted eyes peer down at her. The beasts were still faintly transparent. While the men around her take their hookboots from the rack. Liessa bends her mind to the task of full visualisation; about her in the musty air the dragons become fully visible, bronze scales dully reflecting the sunbeam shafts. Her mind throbs, but now that the Power is flowing fully she can, with barely a wander of concentration, think of other
