The Colour of Magic

the more critical grimoires could be stored until their potency had attenuated.
    That was how there came to be at Unseen University the Octavo, greatest of all grimoires, formerly owned by the Creator of the Universe. It was this book that Rincewind had once opened for a bet. He had only a second to stare at a page before setting off various alarm spells, but that was time enough for one spell to leap from it and settle in his memory like a toad in a stone.

    “Then what?” said Twoflower.
    “Oh, they dragged me out. Thrashed me, of course.”
    “And no one knows what the spell does ?”
    Rincewind shook his head.
    “It’d vanished from the page,” he said. “No one will know until I say it. Or until I die, of course. Then it will sort of say itself. For all I know it stops the universe, or ends Time, or anything.”
    Twoflower patted him on the shoulder.
    “No sense in brooding,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s have another look for a way out.”
    Rincewind shook his head. All the terror had been spent now. He had broken through the terror barrier, perhaps, and was in the dead calm state of mind that lies on the other side. Anyway, he had ceased to gibber.
    “We’re doomed,” he stated. “We’ve been walking around all night. I tell you, this place is a spiderweb. It doesn’t matter which way we go, we’ll end up in the center.”
    “It was kind of you to come looking for me, anyway,” said Twoflower. “How did you manage it exactly? It was very impressive.”
    “Oh, well,” began the wizard awkwardly. “I just thought “I can’t leave old Twoflower there’ and—”
    “So what we’ve got to do now is find this Bel-Shamharoth person and explain things to him and perhaps he’ll let us out,” said Twoflower.
    Rincewind ran a finger around his ear.
    “It must be the funny echoes in here,” he said. “I thought I heard you use words like find and explain .”
    “That’s right.”
    Rincewind glared at him in the hellish purple glow.
    “ Find Bel-Shamharoth?” he said.
    “Yes. We don’t have to get involved.”
    “Find the Soul Render and not get involved? Just give him a nod, I suppose, and ask the way to the exit? Explain things to the Sender of Eignnnngh,” Rincewind bit off the end of the word just in time and finished, “You’re insane ! Hey! Come back! ”
    He darted down the passage after Twoflower, and after a few moments came to a halt with a groan.
    The violet light was intense here, giving everything new and unpleasant colors. This wasn’t a passage, it was a wide room with walls to a number that Rincewind didn’t dare to contemplate, and ei—and 7a passages radiating from it.
    Rincewind saw, a little way off, a low altar with the same number of sides as four times two. It didn’t occupy the center of the room, however. The center was occupied by a huge stone slab with twice as many sides as a square. It looked massive. In the strange light it appeared to be slightly tilted, with one edge standing proud of the slabs around it.
    Twoflower was standing on it.
    “Hey. Rincewind! Look what’s here!”
    The Luggage came ambling down one of the other passages that radiated from the room.
    “That’s great,” said Rincewind. “Fine. It can lead us out of here. Now.”
    Twoflower was already rummaging in the chest.
    “Yes,” he said. “After I’ve taken a few pictures. Just let me fit the attachment—”
    “I said now —”
    Rincewind stopped. Hrun the Barbarian was standing in the passage mouth directly opposite him, a great black sword held in one ham-sized fist.
    “You?” said Hrun uncertainly.
    “Ahaha. Yes,” said Rincewind. “Hrun, isn’t it? Long time no see. What brings you here?”
    Hrun pointed to the Luggage.
    “That,” he said. This much conversation seemed to exhaust Hrun. Then he added, in a tone that combined statement, claim, threat and ultimatum: “Mine.”
    “It belongs to Twoflower here,” said Rincewind. “Here’s a tip. Don’t touch it.”
    It dawned on him that this was precisely the wrong thing to say, but Hrun had already pushed Twoflower away and was reaching for the Luggage…
    …which sprouted legs, backed away, and raised its lid threateningly. In the uncertain light Rincewind thought he could see rows of enormous teeth, white as bleached beech-wood.
    “Hrun,” he said quickly, “there’s something I ought to tell you.”
    Hrun turned a puzzled face to him.
    “What?” he said.
    “It’s about numbers. Look, you