Mort

pictures,” he said. “That looks like some sort of wizard thing.”
    “I’m not sure if it’s working. You see, people were beginning to get upset and they didn’t know why, and that made it worse. Their minds were in one reality and their bodies were in another. Very unpleasant. They couldn’t get used to the idea that she was still alive. I thought the pictures might be a good idea but, you know, people just don’t see what their mind tells them isn’t there.”
    “I could have told you that,” said Mort bitterly.
    “I had the town criers out during the daytime,” Cutwell continued. “I thought that if people could come to believe in her, then this new reality could become the real one.”
    “Mmmph?” said Mort. He turned away from the window. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, you see—I reckoned that if enough people believed in her, they could change reality. It works for gods. If people stop believing in a god, he dies. If a lot of them believe in him, he grows stronger.”
    “I didn’t know that. I thought gods were just gods.”
    “They don’t like it talked about,” said Cutwell, shuffling through the heap of books and parchments on his worktable.
    “Well, that might work for gods, because they’re special,” said Mort. “People are—more solid. It wouldn’t work for people.”
    “That’s not true. Let’s suppose you went out of here and prowled around the palace. One of the guards would probably see you and he’d think you were a thief and he’d fire his crossbow. I mean, in his reality you’d be a thief. It wouldn’t actually be true but you’d be just as dead as if it was. Belief is powerful stuff. I’m a wizard. We know about these things. Look here.”
    He pulled a book out of the debris in front of him and opened it at the piece of bacon he’d used as a bookmark. Mort looked over his shoulder, and frowned at the curly magical writing. It moved around on the page, twisting and writhing in an attempt not to be read by a non-wizard, and the general effect was unpleasant.
    “What’s this?” he said.
    “It’s the Book of the Magick of Alberto Malich the Mage,” said the wizard, “a sort of book of magical theory. It’s not a good idea to look too hard at the words, they resent it. Look, it says here—”
    His lips moved soundlessly. Little beads of sweat sprang up on his forehead and decided to get together and go down and see what his nose was doing. His eyes watered.
    Some people like to settle down with a good book. No-one in possession of a complete set of marbles would like to settle down with a book of magic, because even the individual words have a private and vindictive life of their own and reading them, in short, is a kind of mental Indian wrestling. Many a young wizard has tried to read a grimoire that is too strong for him, and people who’ve heard the screams have found only his pointy shoes with the classic wisp of smoke coming out of them and a book which is, perhaps, just a little fatter. Things can happen to browsers in magical libraries that make having your face pulled off by tentacled monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions seem a mere light massage by comparison.
    Fortunately Cutwell had an expurgated edition, with some of the more distressing pages clamped shut (although on quiet nights he could hear the imprisoned words scritching irritably inside their prison, like a spider trapped in a matchbox; anyone who has ever sat next to someone wearing a Walkman will be able to imagine exactly what they sounded like).
    “This is the bit,” said Cutwell. “It says here that even gods—”
    “I’ve seen him before!”
    “What?”
    Mort pointed a shaking finger at the book.
    “Him!”
    Cutwell gave him an odd look and examined the left-hand page. There was a picture of an elderly wizard holding a book and a candlestick in an attitude of near-terminal dignity.
    “That’s not part of the magic,” he said testily, “that’s just the author.”
    “What does it say under the picture?”
    “Er. It says ’Yff youe have enjoyed thiss Boke, youe maye be interestede yn othere Titles by—”
    “No, right under the picture is what I meant!”
    “That’s easy. It’s old Malich himself. Every wizard knows him. I mean, he founded the University.” Cutwell chuckled. “There’s a famous statue of him in the main hall, and during Rag Week once I climbed up it and put a—”
    Mort stared at the picture.
    “Tell me,” he said quietly,