Sourcery

hair stood on end.
    You will do as you are commanded .
    “I won’t.”
    You know what happens to boys who are bad .
    There was a crackle and a smell of scorched flesh. Coin dropped to his knees.
    “Here, hang on a minute—” Rincewind began.
    Coin opened his eyes. They were gold still, but flecked with brown.
    Rincewind swung his sock around in a wide humming arc that connected with the staff halfway along its length. There was a brief explosion of brick dust and burnt wool and the staff spun out of the boy’s hand. Wizards scattered as it tumbled end over end across the floor.
    It reached the parapet, bounced upwards and shot over the edge.
    But, instead of falling, it steadied itself in the air, spun in its own length and sped back again trailing octarine sparks and making a noise like a buzzsaw.
    Rincewind pushed the stunned boy behind him, threw away the ravaged sock and whipped his hat off, flailing wildly as the staff bored toward him. It caught him on the side of the head, delivering a shock that almost welded his teeth together and toppled him like a thin and ragged tree.
    The staff turned again in mid-air, glowing red-hot now, and swept back for another and quite definitely final run.
    Rincewind struggled up on his elbows and watched in horrified fascination as it swooped through the chilly air which, for some reason he didn’t understand, seemed to be full of snowflakes.
    And became tinged with purple, blotched with blue. Time slowed and ground to a halt like an underwound phonograph.
    Rincewind looked up at the tall black figure that had appeared a few feet away.
    It was, of course, Death.
    He turned his glowing eyesockets toward Rincewind and said, in a voice like the collapse of undersea chasms, G OOD AFTERNOON .
    He turned away as if he had completed all necessary business for the time being, stared at the horizon for a while, and started to tap one foot idly. It sounded like a bagful of maracas.
    “Er,” said Rincewind.
    Death appeared to remember him. I’ M SORRY ? he said politely.
    “I always wondered how it was going to be,” said Rincewind.
    Death took an hourglass out from the mysterious folds of his ebon robes and peered at it.
    D ID YOU ? he said, vaguely.
    “I suppose I can’t complain,” said Rincewind virtuously. “I’ve had a good life. Well, quite good.” He hesitated. “Well, not all that good. I suppose most people would call it pretty awful.” He considered it further. “ I would,” he added, half to himself.
    W HAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN ?
    Rincewind was nonplussed. “Don’t you make an appearance when a wizard is about to die?”
    O F COURSE . A ND I MUST SAY YOU PEOPLE ARE GIVING ME A BUSY DAY .
    “How do you manage to be in so many places at the same time?”
    G OOD ORGANIZATION .
    Time returned. The staff, which had been hanging in the air a few feet away from Rincewind, started to scream forward again.
    And there was a metallic thud as Coin caught it one-handedly in mid-flight.
    The staff uttered a noise like a thousand fingernails dragging across glass. It thrashed wildly up and down, flailing at the arm that held it, and bloomed into evil green flame along its entire length.
    So. At the last, you fail me .
    Coin groaned but held on as the metal under his fingertips went red, then white.
    He thrust the arm out in front of him, and the force streaming from the staff roared past him and drew sparks from his hair and whipped his robe up into weird and unpleasant shapes. He screamed and whirled the staff around and smashed it on the parapet, leaving a long bubbling line in the stone.
    Then he threw it away. It clattered against the stones and rolled to a halt, wizards scattering out of its path.
    Coin sagged to his knees, shaking.
    “I don’t like killing people,” he said. “I’m sure it can’t be right.”
    “Hold onto that thought,” said Rincewind fervently.
    “What happens to people after they’re dead?” said Coin.
    Rincewind glanced up at Death.
    “I think this one’s for you,” he said.
    H E CANNOT SEE OR HEAR ME , said Death, UNTIL HE WANTS TO .
    There was a little clinking noise. The staff was rolling back toward Coin, who looked down at it in horror.
    Pick me up .
    “You don’t have to,” said Rincewind again.
    You cannot resist me. You cannot defeat yourself , said the staff.
    Coin reached out very slowly, and picked it up.
    Rincewind glanced at his sock. It was a stub of burnt wool, its brief career as a weapon of war having