The Colour of Magic   ::   Пратчетт Терри

Broadman is a—friend of ours, isn’t he?”

“Aye,” said Withel, “if he knows what’s good for trade.”

“Among his customers has been your man Gorrin,” said Ymor pleasantly, “for he writes here about a box on legs, if I read this scrawl correctly.”

He looked at Withel over the top of the paper. Withel looked away. “He will be disciplined,” he said flatly. Wa looked at the man leaning back in his chair, his black-clad frame resting as nonchalantly as a Rimland puma on a jungle branch, and decided that Gorrin atop Small Gods temple would soon be joining those little deities in the multifold dimensions of Beyond. And he owed Wa three copper pieces.

Ymor crumpled the note and tossed it into a corner. “I think we’ll wander along to the Drum later on, Withel. Perhaps, too, we may try this beer that your men find so tempting.”

Withel said nothing. Being Ymor’s right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with scented bootlaces.

The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the cities bounding the Circle Sea, was as a matter of course the home of a large number of gangs, thieves’ guilds, syndicates and similar organisations. This was one of the reasons for its wealth. Most of the humbler folk on the widdershin side of the river, in Morpork’s mazy alleys, supplemented their meagre incomes by filling some small role for one or other of the competing gangs. So it was that by the time Hugh and Twoflower entered the courtyard of the Broken Drum the leaders of a number of them were aware that someone had arrived in the city who appeared to have much treasure. Some reports from the more observant spies included details about a book that told the stranger what to say, and a box that walked by itself. These facts were immediately discounted. No magician capable of such enchantments ever came within a mile of Morpork docks.

It still being that hour when most of the city was just rising or about to go to bed there were few people in the Drum to watch Twoflower descend the stairs. When the Luggage appeared behind him and started to lurch confidently down the steps the customers at the rough wooden tables, as one man, looked suspiciously at their drinks.

Broadman was browbeating the small troll who swept the bar when the trio walked past him. “What in hell’s that?” he said.

“Just don’t talk about it,” hissed Hugh. Twoflower was already thumbing through his book.

“What’s he doing?” said Broadman, arms akimbo.

“It tells him what to say. I know it sounds ridiculous,” muttered Hugh.

“How can a book tell a man what to say?”

“I wish for an accommodation, a room, lodgings, the lodging house, full board, are your rooms clean, a room with a view, what is your rate for one night?” said Twoflower in one breath.

Broadman looked at Hugh. The beggar shrugged.

“He’s got plenty money,” he said.

“Tell him it’s three copper pieces, then. And that thing will have to go in the stable.”

“?” said the stranger. Broadman held up three thick red fingers and the man’s face was suddenly a sunny display of comprehension. He reached into his pouch and laid three large gold pieces on Broadman’s palm. Broadman stared at them. They represented about four times the worth of the Broken Drum, Staff included. He looked at Hugh. There was no help there. He looked at the stranger. He swallowed.

“Yes,” he said, in an unnaturally high voice. “And then there’s meals, o’course. Uh. You understand, yes? Food. You eat. No?” He made the appropriate motions.

“Fut?” said the little man.

“Yes,” said Broadman, beginning to sweat. “Have a look in your little book, I should.”

The man opened the book and ran a finger down one page. Broadman, who could read after a fashion, peered over the top of the volume. What he saw made no sense.

“Fooood,” said the stranger. “Yes. Cutlet, hash chop, stew, ragout, fricassee, mince, collops, souffle, dumpling, blancmange, sorbet, gruel, sausage, not to have a sausage, beans, without a hear, kickshaws, jelly, jam. Giblets.” He beamed at Broadman.

“All that?” said the innkeeper weakly.

“It’s just the way he talks,” said Hugh, “Don’t ask me why. He just does.”

All eyes in the room were watching the stranger-except for a pair belonging to Rincewind the wizard, who was sitting in the darkest corner nursing a mug of very small beer.

He was watching the Luggage.

Watch Rincewind.

Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon that marked him as an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic whose time-and-space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. Graduates were usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind—after an unfortunate event—had left him knowing only one spell and made a living of sorts around the town by capitalising on an innate gift for languages. He avoided work as a rule, but had a quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. And he knew sapient pearwood when he saw it. He was seeing it now, and didn’t quite believe it.

An archmage, by dint of great effort and much expenditure of time, might eventually obtain a small staff made from the timber of the sapient peartree. It grew only on the sites of ancient magic-there were probably no more than two such staffs in all the cities of the circle sea. A large chest of it… Rincewind tried to work it out, and decided that even if the box were crammed with star opals and sticks of auricholatum the contents would not be worth one-tenth the price of the container. A vein started to throb in his forehead.

He stood up and made his way to the trio.

“May I be of assistance?” he ventured.

“Shove off, Rincewind,” snarled Broadman.

“I only thought it might be useful to address this gentleman in his own tongue,” said the wizard gently. “He’s doing all right on his own,” said the innkeeper, but took a few steps backward. Rincewind smiled politely at the stranger and tried a few words of Chimeran. He prided himself on his fluency in the tongue, but the stranger only looked bemused.

“It won’t work,” said Hugh knowledgeably, “it’s the book, you see. It tells him what to say. Magic.”

Rincewind switched to High Borogravian, to Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even Black Oroogu, the language with no nouns and only one adjective, which is obscene.