Sourcery

direction.”
    “And yet, delightful snow on the slopes of Mount Eritor, we do not know which one.”
    Nijel sighed, and reached into his bag.
    “Erm,” he said, “excuse me. Would this be any good? I stole it. Sorry.”
    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 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, shiny 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 to say that my wish is your command.”
    “Oh, absolutely no one says that sort of thing anymore,” said the genie, and produced a glass 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.
    “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 bloody well not standing for it,” snarled Conina. She snatched 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 shiny 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 assured that her wish, which was certainly a wish of tone and brilliance, would be his command.
    “I shall