Терри Пратчетт - The Colour of Magic

“I don’t think I unnerstan’ this inn-sewer-ants,” he said firmly, idly watching the world spin by,

“Magic now. Magic I unnerstan’.”

Twoflower grinned. “Magic is one thing, and reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits is another, he said.”

“Whah?”

“What?”

“That funny word you used,” said Rincewind impatiently.

“Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?

“Never heard of it.”

Twoflower tried to explain.

Rincewind tried to understand.

In the long afternoon they toured the city Turnwise of the river. Twoflower led the way, with the strange picture-box slung on a strap round his neck, Rincewind trailed behind, whimpering at intervals and checking to see that his head was still there. A few others followed, too. In a city where public executions, duels, fights, magical feuds and strange events regularly punctuated the daily round the inhabitants had brought the profession of interested bystander to a peak of perfection. They were, to a man, highly skilled yawpers. In any case, Twoflower was delightedly taking picture after picture of people engaged in what he described as typical activities, and since a quarter-rhinu would subsequently change hands “for their trouble” a tail of bemused and happy nouveux-riches was soon following him in case this madman exploded in a shower of gold.

At the Temple of the Seven-Handed Sek a hasty convocation of priests and ritual heart-transplant artisans agreed that the hundred-span high statue of Sek was altogether too holy to be made into a magic picture, but a payment of two rhinu left them astoundedly agreeing that perhaps He wasn’t as holy as all that.

A prolonged session at the Whore Pits produced a number of colourful and instructive pictures, a number of which Rincewind concealed about his person for detailed perusal in private. As the fumes cleared from his brain he began to speculate seriously as to how the iconograph worked. Even a failed wizard knew that some substances were sensitive to light. Perhaps the glass plates were treated by some arcane process that froze the light, that passed through them: or something like that, anyway. Rincewind often suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He was usually disappointed.

However, he soon took every opportunity to operate the box. Twoflower was only too pleased to allow this, since that enabled the little man to appear in his own pictures. It was at this point that Rincewind noticed something strange. Possession of the box conferred a kind of power on the wielder which was that anyone, confronted with the hypnotic glass eye, would submissively obey the most peremptory orders about stance and expression.

It was while he was thus engaged in the Plaza of Broken Moons that disaster struck. Twoflower had posed alongside a bewildered charm-seller, his crowd of new-found admirers watching him with interest in case he did something humorously lunatic.

Rincewind got down on one knee, the better to arrange the picture, and pressed the enchanted lever.

The box said, “It’s no good. I’ve run out of pink.”

A hitherto unnoticed door opened in front of his eyes. A small, green and hideously warty humanoid figure leaned out, pointed at a colour-encrusted palette in one clawed hand, and screamed at him. “No pink, See?” screeched the homunculus. “No good you going on pressing the lever when there’s no pink, is there? If you wanted pink you shouldn’t of took all those pictures of young ladies, should you? It’s monochrome from now on, friend. Alright?”

“Alright. Yeah, Sure,” said Rincewind. In one dim corner of the little box he thought he could see an easle, and a tiny unmade bed. He hoped he couldn’t.

“So long as that’s understood,” said the imp, and shut the door. Rincewind thought he could hear the muffled sound of grumbling and the scrape of a stool being dragged across the floor.

“Twoflower—” he began, and looked up.

Twoflower had vanished. As Rincewind stared at the crowd, with sensations of prickly horror traveling up his spine, there came a gentle prod in the small of his back.

“Turn without haste,” said a voice like black silk. “Or kiss your kidneys goodbye.”

The crowd watched with interest. It was turning out to be quite a good day.

Rincewind turned slowly, feeling the point of the sword scrape along his ribs. At the other end of the blade he recognized Stren Withel—thief, cruel swordsman, disgruntled contender for the title of worst man in the world.

“Hi,” he said weakly. A few yards away he noticed a couple of unsympathetic men raising the lid of the Luggage and pointing excitedly at the bags of gold. Withel smiled. It made an unnerving effect on his scar-crossed face.

“I know you,” he said. “a gutter wizard. What is that thing?”

Rincewind became aware that the lid of the Luggage was trembling slightly, although there was no wind. And he was still holding the picture-box.

“This? It makes pictures,” he said brightly. “Hey. just hold that smile, will you?” He backed away quickly and pointed the box.

For a moment Withel hesitated. “What? he said.

“That’s fine, hold it just like that…” said Rincewind.

The thief paused, then growled and swung his sword back.

There was a snap, and a duet of horrible screams Rincewind did not glance around for fear of the terrible things he might see, and by the time Withel looked for him again he was on the other side of the plaza and still accelerating.

The albatross descended in wide, slow sweeps that ended in an undignified flurry of feathers and a thump as it landed heavily on its platform in the Patrician’s bird garden.

The custodian of the birds, dozing in the sun and hardly expecting a long-distance message so soon after this morning’s arrival, jerked to his feet and looked up. A few moments later he was scuttling through the palace’s corridors holding the message capsule and—owing to carelessness brought on by surprise—sucking at the nasty beak wound on the back of his hand

Rincewind pounded down an alley, paying no heed to the screams of rage coming from the picture box and cleared a high wall with his frayed robe flapping around him like the feathers of a dishevelled jackdaw. He landed in the forecourt of a carpet shop, scattering the merchandise and customers dived through its rear exit trailing apologies, skidded down another alley and stopped, teetering dangerously, just as he was about to plunge unthinkingly into the Ankh.

There are said to be some mystic rivers—one drop of which can steal a man’s life away. After its turbid passage through the twin cities the Ankh could have been one of them.

In the distance the cries of rage took on a shrill note of terror. Rincewind looked around desperately for a boat, or a handhold up the sheer walls on either side of him.

He was trapped.

Unbidden, the Spell welled up in his mind. It was perhaps untrue to say that he had learned it; it had learned him. The episode had led to his expulsion from Unseen University, because, for a bet, he had dared to open the pages of the last remaining copy of the creators own grimoire, The Octavo, while the University librarian was otherwise engaged.. The spell had leapt out of the page and instantly burrowed deeply into his mind, from whence even the combined talents of the Faculty of Medicine had been unable to coax it. Precisely which one it was they were also unable to ascertain, except that it was one of the eight basic spells that were intricately interwoven with the very fabric of time and space itself.

Since then it had been showing a worrying tendency, when Rincewind was feeling rundown or especially threatened, to try to get itself said. He clenched his teeth together but the first syllable forced itself around the corner of his mouth. His left hand raised involuntarily and, as the magical force whirled him round, began to give off octarine sparks…