Eric

distil out of the blur. It was a long, low room, one end of which was entirely occupied by an enormous fireplace. A bench all down one wall contained a selection of glassware apparently created by a drunken glassblower with hic-cups, and inside its byzantine coils colored liquids seethed and bubbled. A skeleton hung from a hook in a relaxed fashion. On a perch beside it someone had nailed a stuffed bird. Whatever sins it had committed in life, it hadn’t deserved what the taxidermist had done to it.
    Rincewind’s gaze then swept across the floor. It was obvious that it was the only sweeping the floor had had for some time. Only around him had space been cleared among the debris of broken glass and overturned retorts for—
    A magic circle.
    It looked an extremely thorough job. Whoever had chalked it was clearly very aware that its purpose was to divide the universe into two bits, the inside and the outside.
    Rincewind was, of course, inside.
    “Ah,” he said, feeling a familiar and almost comforting sense of helpless dread sweep over him.
    “I adjure and conjure thee against all aggressive acts, o demon of the pit,” said the voice from, Rincewind now realized, behind the table.
    “Fine, fine,” said Rincewind quickly. “That’s all right by me. Er. It isn’t possible that there has been the teeniest little mistake here, could there?”
    “Avaunt!”
    “Right!” said Rincewind. He looked around him desperately. “How?”
    “Don’t you think you can lure me to my doom with thy lying tongue, o fiend of Shamharoth,” said the table. “I am learned in the ways of demons. Obey my every command or I will return thee unto the boiling hell from which you came. Thou came, sorry. Thou came’st, in fact. And I really mean it.”
    The figure stepped out. It was quite short, and most of it was hidden by a variety of charms, amulets and talismans which, even if not effective against magic, would probably have protected it against a tolerably determined sword thrust. It wore glasses and had a hat with long sidepieces that gave it the air of a short-sighted spaniel.
    It held a sword in one shaking hand. It was so heavily etched with sigils that it was beginning to bend.
    “Boiling hell, did you say?” said Rincewind weakly.
    “Absolutely. Where the screams of anguish and the tortured torments—”
    “Yes, yes, you’ve made your point,” said Rincewind. “Only, you see, the thing is, in fact, that I am not a demon. So if you would just let me out?”
    “I am not fooled by thy outer garb, demon,” said the figure. In a more normal voice it added, “Anyway, demons always lie. Well-known fact.”
    “It is?” said Rincewind, clutching at this straw. “In that case, then—I am a demon.”
    “Aha! Condemned out of your own mouth!”
    “Look, I don’t have to put up with this,” said Rincewind. “I don’t know who you are or what’s happening, but I’m going to have a drink, all right?”
    He went to walk out of the circle, and went rigid with shock as sparks crackled up from the runic inscriptions and earthed themselves all over his body.
    “Thou mays’nt—thou maysn’t—thou mays’n’t—” The conjurer of demons gave up. “Look, you can’t step over the circle until I release you, right? I mean, I don’t want to be unpleasant, it’s just that if I let you out of the circle you will be able to resume your true shape, and a pretty awful shape it is too, I expect. Avaunt!” he added, feeling that he wasn’t keeping up the tone.
    “All right. I’m avaunting. I’m avaunting,” said Rincewind, rubbing his elbow. “But I’m still not a demon.”
    “How come you answered the conjuration, then? I suppose you just happened to be passing through the paranatural dimensions, eh?”
    “Something like that, I think. It’s all a bit blurred.”
    “Pull the other one, it has got bells on.” The conjurer leaned his sword against a lectern on which a heavy book, dripping bookmarks, lay open. Then he did a mad little jig on the floor.
    “It’s worked!” he said. “Heheh!” He caught sight of Rincewind’s horrified gaze and pulled himself together. He gave an embarrassed cough, and stepped up to the lectern.
    “I really am not—” Rincewind began.
    “I had this list here somewhere,” said the figure. “Let’s see, now. Oh, yes. I command you—thee, I mean—to, ah, grant me three wishes. Yes. I want mastery of the kingdoms of the world, I want to meet the most beautiful woman