The Colour of Magic

know if you add seven and one, or three and five, or take two from ten, you get a number. While you’re here don’t say it, and we might all stand a chance of getting out of here alive. Or merely just dead.”
    “Who is he?” asked Twoflower. He was holding a cage in his hands, dredged from the bottommost depths of the Luggage. It appeared to be full of sulking pink lizards.
    “I am Hrun,” said Hrun proudly. Then he looked at Rincewind.
    “What?” he said.
    “Just don’t say it, okay?” said Rincewind.
    He looked at the sword in Hrun’s hand. It was black, the sort of black that is less a color than a graveyard of colors, and there was a highly ornate runic inscription up the blade. More noticeable still was the faint octarine glow that surrounded it. The sword must have noticed him, too, because it suddenly spoke in a voice like a claw being scraped across glass.
    “Strange,” it said. “Why can’t he say eight?”
    EIGHT, Hate, ate said the echoes. There was the faintest of grinding noises, deep under the earth.
    And the echoes, although they became softer, refused to die away. They bounced from wall to wall, crossing and recrossing, and the violet light flickered in time with the sound.
    “You did it!” screamed Rincewind. “I said you shouldn’t say eight!”
    He stopped, appalled at himself. But the word was out now, and joined its colleagues in the general susurration.
    Rincewind turned to run, but the air suddenly seemed to be thicker than treacle. A charge of magic bigger than he had ever seen was building up; when he moved, in painful slow motion, his limbs left trails of golden sparks that traced their shape in the air.
    Behind him there was a rumble as the great octagonal slab rose into the air, hung for a moment on one edge, and crashed down on the floor.
    Something thin and black snaked out of the pit and wrapped itself around his ankle. He screamed as he landed heavily on the vibrating flagstones. The tentacle started to pull him across the floor.
    Then Twoflower was in front of him, reaching out for his hands. He grasped the little man’s arms desperately and they lay looking into each other’s faces. Rincewind slid on, even so.
    “What’s holding you?” he gasped.
    “N-nothing!” said Twoflower. “What’s happening?”
    “I’m being dragged into this pit, what do you think?”
    “Oh, Rincewind, I’m sorry—”
    “ You’re sorry—”
    There was a noise like a singing saw and the pressure on Rincewind’s legs abruptly ceased. He turned his head and saw Hrun crouched by the pit, his sword a blur as it hacked at the tentacles racing out toward him.
    Twoflower helped the wizard to his feet and they crouched by the altar stone, watching the manic figure as it battled the questing arms.
    “It won’t work,” said Rincewind. “The Sender can materialize tentacles. What are you doing? ”
    Twoflower was feverishly attaching the cage of subdued lizards to the picture box, which he had mounted on a tripod.
    “I’ve just got to get a picture of this,” he muttered. “It’s stupendous! Can you hear me, imp?”
    The picture imp opened his tiny hatch, glanced momentarily at the scene around the pit, and vanished into the box. Rincewind jumped as something touched his leg, and brought his heel down on a questing tentacle.
    “Come on,” he said. “Time to go zoom.” He grabbed Twoflower’s arm, but the tourist resisted.
    “Run away and leave Hrun with that thing?” he said.
    Rincewind looked blank. “Why not?” he said. “It’s his job.”
    “But it’ll kill him!”
    “It could be worse,” said Rincewind.
    “What?”
    “It could be us ,” Rincewind pointed out logically. “Come on!”
    Twoflower pointed. “Hey!” he said. “It’s got my Luggage!”
    Before Rincewind could restrain him Twoflower ran around the edge of the pit to the box, which was being dragged across the floor while its lid snapped ineffectually at the tentacle that held it. The little man began to kick at the tentacle in fury.
    Another one snapped out of the melee around Hrun and caught him around the waist. Hrun himself was already an indistinct shape amid the tightening coils. Even as Rincewind stared in horror the Hero’s sword was wrenched from his grasp and hurled against a wall.
    “Your spell!” shouted Twoflower.
    Rincewind did not move. He was looking at the Thing rising out of the pit. It was an enormous eye, and it was staring directly at him. He whimpered as a