The Light Fantastic - Page 10/32

'Unless it was stuffed with rocks,' said the astrologer, in a wretched and, as it turned out, entirely unsuccessful attempt to lighten the mood.

'But come down he must – somewhere. Where? we ask ourselves.'

'Where?' said the astrologer loyally.

'And immediately a course of action suggests itself to us.'

'Ah,' said the astrologer, running in an attempt to keep up as the wizard stalked across The Two Fat Cousins.

'And that course is . . .?'

The astrologer looked up into two eyes as grey and bland as steel.

'Um. We stop looking?' he ventured.

'Precisely! We use the gifts the Creator has given us, to whit, we look down and what is it we see?'

The astrologer groaned inwardly. He looked down.

'Tiles?' he hazarded.

'Tiles, yes, which together make up the . . .?' Trymon looked expectant.

'Zodiac?' ventured the astrologer, a desperate man.

'Right! And therefore all we need do is cast Rincewind's precise horoscope and we will know exactly where he is!'

The astrologer grinned like a man who, having tap-danced on quicksand, feels the press of solid rock under his feet.

'I shall need to know his precise place and time of birth,' he said.

'Easily done. I copied them out of the University files before I came up here.'

The astrologer looked at the notes, and his forehead wrinkled. He crossed the room and pulled out a wide drawer full of charts. He read the notes again. He picked up a complicated pair of compasses and made some passes across the charts. He picked up a small brass astrolobe and cranked it carefully. He whistled between his teeth. He picked up a piece of chalk and scribbled some numbers on a blackboard.

Trymon, meanwhile, had been staring out at the new star. He thought: the legend in the Pyramid of Tsort says that whoever says the Eight Spells together when the Disc is in danger will obtain all that he truly desires. And it will be so soon!

And he thought: I remember Rincewind, wasn't he the cruffy boy who always came bottom of the class when we were training? Not a magical bone in his body. Let me get him in front of me, and we'll see if we can't get all eight—

The astrologer said 'Gosh' under his breath. Trymon spun around.

'Well?'

'Fascinating chart,' said the astrologer, breathlessly. His forehead wrinkled. 'Bit strange, really,' he said.

'How strange?'

'He was born under The Small Boring Group of Faint Stars which, as you know, lies between The Flying Moose and The Knotted String. It is said that even the ancients couldn't find anything interesting to say about the sign, which—'

'Yes, yes, get on with it,' said Trymon irritably.

'It's the sign traditionally associated with chess board makers, sellers of onions, manufacturers of plaster images of small religious significance, and people allergic to pewter. Not a wizard's sign at all. And at the time of his birth the shadow of Cori Celesti—'

'I don't want to know all the mechanical details,' growled Trymon. 'Just give me his horoscope.'

The astrologer, who had been rather enjoying himself, sighed and made a few additional calculations.

'Very well,'he said. 'It reads as follows: “Today is a good tine for making new friends. A good deed may have unforeseen consequences. Don't upset any druids. You will soon be going on a very strange journey. Your lucky food is small cucumbers. People pointing knives at you are probably up to no good. PS, we really mean it about druids”.'

Druids?' said Trymon. 'I wonder . . .'

'Are you all right?' said Twoflower. Rincewind opened his eyes.

The wizard sat up hurriedly and grabbed Twoflower by the shirt.

'I want to leave here!' he said urgently. 'Right now!'

'But there's going to be an ancient and traditional ceremony I'

'I don't care how ancient! I want the feel of honest cobbles under my feet, I want the old familiar smell of cesspits, I want to go where there's lots of people and fires and roofs and walls and friendly things like that! I want to go home!'

He found that he had this sudden desperate longing for the fuming, smoky streets of Ankh-Morpork, which was always at its best in the spring, when the gummy sheen on the turbid waters of the Ankh River had a special iridescence and the eaves were full of birdsong, or at least birds coughing rhythmically.

A tear sprang to his eye as he recalled the subtle play of light on the Temple of Small Gods, a noted local landmark, and a lump came to his throat when he remembered the fried fish stall on the junction of Midden Street and The Street of Cunning Artificers. He thought of the gherkins they sold there, great green things lurking at the bottom of their jar like drowned whales. They called to Rincewind across the miles, promising to introduce him to the pickled eggs in the next jar.

He thought of the cosy livery stable lofts and warm gratings where he spent his nights. Foolishly, he had sometimes jibed at this way of life. It seemed incredible now, but he had found it boring.

Now he'd had enough. He was going home. Pickled gherkins, I hear you calling . . .

He pushed Twoflower aside, gathered his tattered robe around him with great dignity, set his face towards that area of horizon he believed to contain the city of his birth, and with intense determination and considerable absentmindedness stepped right off the top of a thirty-foot trilithon.

Some ten minutes later, when a worried and rather contrite Twoflower dug him out of the large snowdrift at the base of the stones, his expression hadn't changed.

Twoflower peered at him.

'Are you all right?' he said. 'How many fingers am I holding up?'

'I want to go home!'

'Okay.'

'No, don't try and talk me out of it, I've had enough, I'd like to say it's been great fun but I can't, and – what?'

'I said okay,' said Twoflower. 'I'd quite like to see Ankh-Morpork again. I expect they've rebuilt quite a lot of it by now.'

It should be noted that the last time the two of them had seen the city it was burning quite fiercely, a fact which had a lot to do with Twoflower introducing the concept of fire insurance to a venial but ignorant populace. But devastating fires were a regular feature of Morporkian life and it had always been cheerfully and meticulously rebuilt, using the traditional local materials of tinder-dry wood and thatch waterproofed with tar.

'Oh,' said Rincewind, deflating a bit. 'Oh, right. Right then. Good. Perhaps we'd better be off, then.'

He scrambled up and brushed the snow off himself.

'Only I think we should wait until morning,' added Twoflower.

'Why?'

'Well, because it's freezing cold, we don't really know where we are, the Luggage has gone missing, it's getting dark—'

Rincewind paused. In the deep canyons of his mind he thought he heard the distant rustle of ancient paper. He had a horrible feeling that his dreams were going to be very repetitive from now on, and he had much better things to do than be lectured by a bunch of ancient spells who couldn't even agree on how the Universe began —

A tiny dry voice at the back of his brain said: What things?

'Oh, shut up,' he said.

'I only said it's freezing cold and—' Twoflower began.

'I didn't mean you, I meant me.'

'What?'

'Oh, shut up,' said Rincewind wearily. 'I don't suppose there's anything to eat around here?'

The giant stones were black and menacing against the dying green light of sunset. The inner circle was full of druids, scurrying around by the light of several bonfires and tuning up all the necessary peripherals of a stone computer, like rams' skulls on poles topped with mistletoe, banners embroidered with twisted snakes and so on. Beyond the circles of firelight a large number of plains people had gathered; druidic festivals were always popular, especially when things went wrong. Rincewind stared at them.

'What's going on?'

'Oh, well,' said Twoflower enthusiastically, 'apparently there's this ceremony dating back for thousands of years to celebrate the, um, rebirth of the moon, or possibly the sun. No, I'm pretty certain it's the moon. Apparently it's very solemn and beautiful and invested with a quiet dignity.'

Rincewind shivered. He always began to worry when Twoflower started to talk like that. At least he hadn't said 'picturesque' or 'quaint' yet; Rincewind had never found a satisfactory translation for those words, but the nearest he had been able to come was 'trouble'.

'I wish the Luggage was here,' said the tourist regretfully. 'I could use my picture box. It sounds very quaint and picturesque.'

The crowd stirred expectantly. Apparently things were about to start.

'Look,' said Rincewind urgently. 'Druids are priests. You must remember that. Don't do anything to upset them.'

'But—'

'Don't offer to buy the stones.'

'But I-'

'Don't start talking about quaint native folkways.'

'I thought—'

'Really don't try to sell them insurance, that always upsets them.'

'But they're priests!' wailed Twoflower. Rincewind paused.

'Yes,' he said. That's the whole point, isn't it?'

At the far side of the outer circle some sort of procession was forming up.

'But priests are good kind men,' said Twoflower. 'At home they go around with begging bowls. It's their only possession,' he added.

'Ah,' said Rincewind, not certain he understood. This would be for putting the blood in, right?'

'Blood?'

'Yes, from sacrifices.' Rincewind thought about the priests he had known at home. He was, of course, anxious not to make an enemy of any god and had attended any number of temple functions and, on the whole, he thought that the most accurate definition of any priest in the Circle Sea Regions was someone who spent quite a lot of time gory to the armpits.

Twoflower looked horrified.

'Oh no,' he said. 'Where I come from priests are holy men who have dedicated themselves to lives of poverty, good works and the study of the nature of God.'

Rincewind considered this novel proposition.

'No sacrifices?' he said.

'Absolutely not.'

Rincewind gave up. 'Well,' he said, 'they don't sound very holy to me.'

There was a loud blarting noise from a band of bronze trumpets. Rincewind looked around. A line of druids marched slowly past, their long sickles hung with sprays of mistletoe. Various junior druids and apprentices followed them, playing a variety of percussion instruments that were traditionally supposed to drive away evil spirits and quite probably succeeded.

Torchlight made excitingly dramatic patterns on the stones, which stood ominously against the green-lit sky. Hubwards, the shimmering curtains of the aurora coriolis began to wink and glitter among the stars as a million ice rystals danced in the Disc's magical field.

'Belafon explained it all to me,' whispered Twoflower. We're going to see a time-honoured ceremony that celebrates the Oneness of Man with the Universe, that was what he said.'

Rincewind looked sourly at the procession. As the druids spread out around a great flat stone that dominated the centre of the circle he couldn't help noticing the attractive if rather pale young lady in their midst. She wore a long white robe, a gold torc around her neck, and an expression of vague apprehension.

'Is she a druidess?' said Twoflower.

'I don't think so,' said Rincewind slowly.

The druids began to chant. It was, Rincewind felt, a particularly nasty and rather dull chant which sounded very much as if it was going to build up to an abrupt crescendo. The sight of the young woman lying down on the big stone didn't do anything to derail his train of thought.

'I want to stay,' said Twoflower. 'I think ceremonies like this hark back to a primitive simplicity which—'