The Light Fantastic

you pass. Don’t rely on him, he’s—”
    “All right,” said Bethan. “Let’s hear it, then.”
    “—a nonentity, a failure, just a—what?”
    “How are you going to get the door open?” said Bethan.
    Rincewind looked at her with his mouth open. Then he looked at the door. It really was very solid, and the lock had a smug air.
    But he had gotten in, once, long ago. Rincewind the student had pushed at the door and it had swung open, and then a moment later the Spell had jumped into his mind and ruined his life.
    “Look,” said a voice from behind the grille, as kindly as it could manage. “Just go and find us a wizard, there’s a good fellow.”
    Rincewind took a deep breath.
    “Stand back,” he rasped.
    “What?”
    “Find something to hide behind,” he barked, with his voice shaking only slightly. “You too,” he said to Bethan and Twoflower.
    “But you can’t—”
    “I mean it!”
    “He means it,” said Twoflower. “That little vein on the side of his forehead, you know, when it throbs like that, well—”
    “Shut up!”
    Rincewind raised one arm uncertainly and pointed it at the door.
    There was total silence.
    Oh gods, he thought, what happens now?
    In the blackness at the back of his mind the Spell shifted uneasily.
    Rincewind tried to get in tune or whatever with the metal of the lock. If he could sow discord amongst its atoms so that they flew apart—
    Nothing happened.
    He swallowed hard, and turned his attention to the wood. It was old and nearly fossilized, and probably wouldn’t burn even if soaked in oil and dropped into a furnace. He tried anyway, explaining to the ancient molecules that they should try to jump up and down to keep warm—
    In the strained silence of his own mind he glared at the Spell, which looked very sheepish.
    He considered the air around the door itself, how it might best be twisted into weird shapes so that the door existed in another set of dimensions entirely.
    The door sat there, defiantly solid.
    Sweating, his mind beginning the endless walk up to the blackboard in front of the grinning class, he turned desperately to the lock again. It must be made of little bits of metal, not very heavy—
    From the grille came the faintest of sounds. It was the noise of wizards untensing themselves and shaking their heads.
    Someone whispered, “ I told you —”
    There was a tiny grinding noise, and a click.
    Rincewind’s face was a mask. Perspiration dripped off his chin.
    There was another click, and the grinding of reluctant spindles. Trymon had oiled the lock, but the oil had been soaked up by the rust and dust of years, and the only way for a wizard to move something by magic, unless he can harness some external movement, is to use the leverage of his mind itself.
    Rincewind was trying very hard to prevent his brain being pushed out of his ears.
    The lock rattled. Metal rods flexed in pitted groves, gave in, pushed levers.
    Levers clicked, notches engaged. There was a long drawn-out grinding noise that left Rincewind on his knees.
    The door swung open on pained hinges. The wizards sidled out cautiously.
    Twoflower and Bethan helped Rincewind to his feet. He stood gray-faced and swaying.
    “Not bad,” said one of the wizards, looking closely at the lock. “A little slow, perhaps.”
    “Never mind that!” snapped Jiglad Wert. “Did you three see anyone on the way down here?”
    “No,” said Twoflower.
    “Someone has stolen the Octavo.”
    Rincewind’s head jerked up. His eyes focused.
    “Who?”
    “Trymon—”
    Rincewind swallowed. “Tall man?” he said. “Fair hair, looks a bit like a ferret?”
    “Now that you mention it—”
    “He was in my class,” said Rincewind. “They always said he’d go a long way.”
    “He’ll go a lot further if he opens the book,” said one of the wizards, who was hastily rolling a cigarette in shaking fingers.
    “Why?” said Twoflower. “What will happen?”
    The wizards looked at one another.
    “It’s an ancient secret, handed down from mage to mage, and we can’t pass it on to knowlessmen,” said Wert.
    “Oh, go on,” said Twoflower.
    “Oh well, it probably doesn’t matter anymore. One mind can’t hold all the spells. It’ll break down, and leave a hole.”
    “What? In his head?”
    “Um. No. In the fabric of the universe,” said Wert. “He might think he can control it by himself, but—”
    They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow