Sourcery - A Novel Of Discworld Part 29

He held out the lamp that had been in the treasury.

"It's magic, isn't it?" he said hopefully. "I've heard about them, isn't it worth a try?"

Creosote shook his head.

"But you said your grandfather used it to make his fortune!" said Conina.

'A lamp," said the Seriph, "he used a a lamp. Not this lamp. No, the real lamp was a battered old thing, and one day this wicked pedlar came around offering new lamps for old and my great-grandmother gave it to him for this one. The family kept it in the vault as a sort of memorial to her. A truly stupid woman. It doesn't work, of course." lamp. Not this lamp. No, the real lamp was a battered old thing, and one day this wicked pedlar came around offering new lamps for old and my great-grandmother gave it to him for this one. The family kept it in the vault as a sort of memorial to her. A truly stupid woman. It doesn't work, of course."

"You tried it?"

"No, but he wouldn't have given it away if it was any good, would he?"

"Give it a rub," said Conina. "It can't do any harm."

"I wouldn't," warned Creosote.

Nijel held the lamp gingerly. It had a strangely sleek look, as if someone had set out to make a lamp that could go fast.

He rubbed it.

The effects were curiously unimpressive. There was a half-hearted pop and a puff of wispy smoke near Nijel's feet. A line appeared in the beach several feet away from the smoke. It spread quickly to outline a square of sand, which vanished.

A figure barrelled out of the beach, jerked to a stop, and groaned.

It was wearing a turban, an expensive tan, a small gold medallion, s.h.i.+ny shorts and advanced running shoes with curly toes.

It said, "I want to get this absolutely straight. Where am I?"

Conina recovered first.

"It's a beach," she said.

"Yah," said the genie. "What I mean was, which lamp? What world?"

"Don't you know?"

The creature took the lamp out of Nijel's unresisting grasp.

"Oh, this old thing," he said. "I'm on time share. Two weeks every August but, of course, usually one can never get away."

"Got a lot of lamps, have you?" said Nijel.

"I am somewhat over-committed on lamps," the genie agreed. "In fact I am thinking of diversifying into rings. Rings are looking big at the moment. There's a lot of movement in rings. Sorry, people; what can I do you for?" The last phrase was turned in that special voice which people use for humorous self-parody, in the mistaken hope that it will make them sound less like a prat.

"We-" Conina began.

"I want a drink," snapped Creosote. "And you are supposed supposed to say that my wish is your command." to say that my wish is your command."

"Oh, absolutely no one says that sort of thing anymore," said the genie, and produced a gla.s.s out of nowhere. He treated Creosote to a brilliant smile lasting a small percentage of one second.

"We want you to take us across the sea to Ankh-Morpork," said Conina firmly.

The genie looked blank. Then he pulled a very thick book* from the empty air and consulted it. from the empty air and consulted it.

"It sounds a really neat concept," he said eventually. "Let's do lunch next Tuesday, okay?"

"Do what?"

"I'm a little energetic right now."

"You're a little-?" Conina began.

"Great," said the genie, sincerely, and glanced at his wrist. "Hey, is that the time?" He vanished.

The three of them looked at the lamp in thoughtful silence, and then Nijel said, "Whatever happened to, you know, the fat guys with the baggy trousers and I Hear And Obey O Master?"

Creosote snarled. He'd just drunk his drink. It had turned out to be water with bubbles in it and a taste like warm flatirons.

"I'm b.l.o.o.d.y well not standing for it," snarled Conina. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the lamp from his hand and rubbed it as if she was sorry she wasn't holding a handful of emery cloth.

The genie reappeared at a different spot, which still managed to be several feet away from the weak explosion and obligatory cloud of smoke.

He was now holding something curved and s.h.i.+ny to his ear, and listening intently. He looked hurriedly at Conina's angry face and contrived to suggest, by waggling his eyebrows and waving his free hand urgently, that he was currently and inconveniently tied up by irksome matters which, regretfully, prevented him giving her his full attention as of now but, as soon as he had disentangled himself from this importunate person, she could rest a.s.sured that her wish, which was certainly a wish of tone and brilliance, would be his command.

"I shall smash the lamp," she said quietly.

The genie flashed her a smile and spoke hastily into the thing he was cradling between his chin and his shoulder.

"Fine," he said. "Great. It's a slice, believe me. Have your people call my people. Stay beyond, okay? Bye." He lowered the instrument. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said vaguely.

"I really shall smash the lamp," said Conina.

"Which lamp is this?" said the genie hurriedly.

"How many have you got?" said Nijel. "I always thought genies had just the one."

The genie explained wearily that in fact he had several lamps. There was a small but well-appointed lamp where he lived during the week, another rather unique lamp in the country, a carefully restored peasant rushlight in an unspoilt wine-growing district near Quirm, and just recently a set of derelict lamps in the docks area of Ankh-Morpork that had great potential, once the smart crowd got there, to become the occult equivalent of a suite of offices and a wine bar.

They listened in awe, like fish who had inadvertently swum into a lecture on how to fly.

"Who are your people the other people have got to call?" said Nijel, who was impressed, although he didn't know why or by what.

"Actually, I don't have any people yet," said the genie, and gave a grimace that was definitely upwardly-mobile at the corners. "But I will."

"Everyone shut up," said Conina firmly, "and you you, take us to Ankh-Morpork."

"I should, if I were you," said Creosote. "When the young lady's mouth looks like a letter box, it's best to do what she says."

The genie hesitated.

"I'm not very deep on transport," he said.

"Learn," said Conina. She was tossing the lamp from hand to hand.

"Teleportation is a major headache," said the genie, looking desperate. "Why don't we do lun-"

"Right, that's it," said Conina. "Now I just need a couple of big flat rocks-"

"Okay, okay. Just hold hands, will you? I'll give it my best shot, but this could be one big mistake-"

The astro-philosophers of Krull once succeeded in proving conclusively that all places are one place and that the distance between them is an illusion, and this news was an embarra.s.sment to all thinking philosophers because it did not explain, among other things, signposts. After years of wrangling the whole thing was then turned over to Ly Tin Wheedle, arguably the Disc's greatest philosopher* who after some thought proclaimed that although it was indeed true that all places were one place, that place was who after some thought proclaimed that although it was indeed true that all places were one place, that place was very large very large.

And so psychic order was restored. Distance is, however, an entirely subjective phenomenon and creatures of magic can adjust it to suit themselves.

They are not necessarily very good at it.

Rincewind sat dejectedly in the blackened ruins of the Library, trying to put his finger on what was wrong with them.

Well, everything, for a start. It was unthinkable that the Library should be burned. It was the largest acc.u.mulation of magic on the Disc. It underpinned wizardry. Every spell ever used was written down in it somewhere. Burning them was, was, was...

There weren't any ashes. Plenty of wood ashes, lots of chains, lots of blackened stone, lots of mess. But thousands of books don't burn easily. They would leave bits of cover and piles of feathery ash. And there wasn't any.

Rincewind stirred the rubble with his toe.

There was only the one door into the Library. Then there were the cellars-he could see the stairs down to them, choked with garbage-but you couldn't hide all the books down there. You couldn't teleport them out either, they would be resistant to such magic; anyone who tried something like that would end up wearing his brains outside his hat.

There was an explosion overhead. A ring of orange fire formed about halfway up the tower of sourcery, ascended quickly and soared off toward Quirm.

Rincewind slid around on his makes.h.i.+ft seat and stared up at the Tower of Art. He got the distinct impression that it was looking back at him. It was totally without windows, but for a moment he thought he saw a movement up among the crumbling turrets.

He wondered how old the tower really was. Older than the University, certainly. Older than the city, which had formed about it like screen around a mountain. Maybe older than geography. There had been a time when the continents were different, Rincewind understood, and then they'd sort of shuffled more comfortably together like puppies in a basket. Perhaps the tower had been washed up on the waves of rock, from somewhere else. Maybe it had been there before the Disc itself, but Rincewind didn't like to consider that, because it raised uncomfortable questions about who built it and what for.

He examined his conscience.

It said: I'm out of options. Please yourself.

Rincewind stood up and brushed the dust and ash off his robe, removing quite a lot of the moulting red plush as well. He removed his hat, made a preoccupied attempt at straightening the point, and replaced it on his head.

Then he walked unsteadily toward the Tower of Art.

There was a very old and quite small door at the base. He wasn't at all surprised when it opened as he approached.

"Strange place," said Nijel. "Funny curve to the walls."

"Where are we?" said Conina.

"And is there any alcohol?" said Creosote. "Probably not," he added.

"And why is it rocking?" said Conina. "I've never been anywhere with metal walls before." She sniffed. "Can you smell oil?" she added, suspiciously.

The genie reappeared, although this time without the smoke and erratic trapdoor effects. It was noticeable that he tried to keep as far away from Conina as politely possible.

"Everyone okay?" he said.

"Is this Ankh?" she said. "Only when we wanted to go there, we rather hoped you'd put us somewhere with a door."

"You're on your way," said the genie.

"In what?"

Something about the way in which the spirit hesitated caused Nijel's mind to leap a tall conclusion from a standing start. He looked down at the lamp in his hands.

He gave it an experimental jerk. The floor shook.

"Oh, no," he said. "It's physically impossible."

"We're in the lamp lamp?" said Conina.

The room trembled again as Nijel tried to look down the spout.

"Don't worry about it," said the genie. "In fact, don't think about it if possible."

He explained-although "explained" is probably too positive a word, and in this case really means failed to explain but at some length-that it was perfectly possible to travel across the world in a small lamp being carried by one of the party, the lamp itself moving because it was being carried by one of the people inside it, because of a) the fractal nature of reality, which meant that everything could be thought of as being inside everything else and b) creative public relations. The trick relied on the laws of physics failing to spot the flaw until the journey was complete.

"In the circ.u.mstances it is best not to think about it, yuh?" said the genie.

"Like not thinking about pink rhinoceroses," said Nijel, and gave an embarra.s.sed laugh as they stared at him.

"It was a sort of game we had," he said. "You had to avoid thinking of pink rhinoceroses." He coughed. "I didn't say it was a particularly good game."

He squinted down the spout again.

"No," said Conina, "not very."

"Uh," said the genie, "Would anyone like coffee? Some sounds? A quick game of Significant Quest?*

"Drink?" said Creosote.

"White wine?"