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been voted the supreme head of all the Orders.
Really? said Rincewind hoarsely. He looked at the other wizards. They were
immobile, like statues.
Oh yes, said Trymon pleasantly. Quite without prompting, too. Very demo-
cratic.
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I preferred tradition, said Rincewind. That way even the dead get the vote.
You will give me the spell voluntarily, said Trymon. Do I have to show you
what I will do otherwise? And in the end you will still yield it. You will scream
for the opportunity to give it to me.
If it stops anywhere, it stops here, thought Rincewind.
You ll have to take it, he said. 1 won t give it to you.
I remember you, said Trymon. Not much good as a student, as I recall. You
never really trusted magic, you kept on saying there should be a better way to run
a universe. Well, you ll see. I have plans. We can
Not we, said Rincewind firmly.
Give me the Spell!
Try and take it, said Rincewind, backing away. 1 don t think you can.
Oh?
Rincewind jumped aside as octarine fire flashed from Trymon s fingers and
left a bubbling rock puddle on the stones.
He could sense the Spell lurking in the back of his mind. He could sense its
fear.
In the silent caverns of his head he reached out for it. It retreated in aston-
ishment, like a dog faced with a maddened sheep. He followed, stamping angrily
through the disused lots and inner-city disaster areas of his subconscious, until he
found it cowering behind a heap of condemned memories. It roared silent defiance
at him, but Rincewind wasn t having any.
Is this it? he shouted at it. When it s time for the showdown, you go and hide?
You re frightened?
The Spell said, that s nonsense, you can t possibly believe that, I m one of the
Eight Spells. But Rincewind advanced on it angrily, shouting, Maybe, but the fact
is I do believe it and you d better remember whose head you re in, right? I can
believe anything I like in here!
Rincewind jumped aside again as another bolt of fire lanced through the hot
night. Trymon grinned, and made nother complicated motion with his hands.
Pressure gripped Rincewind. Every inch of his skin felt as though it was being
used as an anvil. He flopped onto his knees.
There are much worse things, said Trymon pleasantly. I can make your flesh
burn on the bones, or fill your body with ants. I have the power to
I have a sword, you know.
The voice was squeaky with defiance.
Rincewind raised his head. Through a purple haze of pain he saw Twoflower
standing behind Trymon, holding a sword in exactly the wrong way.
Trymon laughed, and flexed his fingers. For a moment his attention was di-
verted.
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Rincewind was angry. He was angry at the Spell, at the world, at the unfairness
of everything, at the fact that he hadn t had much sleep lately, at the fact that he
wasn t thinking quite straight. But most of all he was angry with Trymon, standing
there full of the magic Rincewind had always wanted but had never achieved, and
doing nothing worthwhile with it.
He sprang, striking Trymon in the stomach with his head and flinging his arms
around him in desperation. Twoflower was knocked aside as they slid along the
stones.
Trymon snarled, and got out the first syllable of a spell before Rincewind s
wildly flailing elbow caught him in the neck. A blast of randomised magic singed
Rincewind s hair.
Rincewind fought as he always fought, without skill or fairness or tactics but
with a great deal of whirlwind effort. The strategy was to prevent an opponent
getting enough time to realise that in fact Rincewind wasn t a very good or strong
fighter, and it often worked.
It was working now, because Trymon had spent rather too much time reading
ancient manuscripts and not getting enough healthy exercise and vitamins. He
managed to get several blows in, which Rincewind was far too high on rage to
notice, but he only used his hands while Rincewind employed knees, feet and
teeth as well.
He was, in fact, winning.
This came as a shock.
It came as more of a shock when, as he knelt on Trymon s chest hitting him
repeatedly about the head, the other man s face changed. The skin crawled and
waved like something seen through a heat haze, and Trymon spoke.
Help me!
For a moment his eyes looked up at Rincewind in fear, pain and entreaty. Then
they weren t eyes at all, but multi-faceted things on a head that could be called a
head only by stretching the definition to its limits. Tentacles and saw-edged legs
and talons unfolded to rip Rincewind s rather sparse flesh from his body.
Twoflower, the tower and the red sky all vanished. Time ran slowly, and
stopped.
Rincewind bit hard on a tentacle that was trying to pull his face off. As it
uncoiled in agony he thrust out a hand and felt it break something hot and squishy.
They were watching. He turned his head, and saw that now he was fighting on
the floor of an enormous amphitheatre. On each side tier upon tier of creatures
stared down at him, creatures with bodies and faces that appeared to have been
made by crossbreeding nightmares. He caught a glimpse of even worse things
behind him, huge shadows that stretched into the overcast sky, before the Trymon-
monster lunged at him with a barbed sting the size of a spear.
Rincewind dodged sideways, and then swung around with both hands clasped
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together into one fist that caught the thing in the stomach, or possibly the thorax,
with a blow that ended in the satisfying crunch of chitin.
He plunged forward, fighting now out of terror of what would happen if he
stopped. The ghostly arena was full of the cluttering of the Dungeon creatures, a
wall of rustling sound that hammered at his ears as he struggled. He imagined that
sound filling the Disc, and he flung blow after blow to save the world of men, to
preserve the little circle of firelight in the dark night of chaos and to lose the gap
through which the nightmare was advancing. But mainly he hit it to stop it hitting
back.
Claws or talons drew white-hotlines across his back, and something bit his
shoulder, but he found a nest of soft tubes among all the hairs and scales and
squeezed it hard.
An arm barbed with spikes swept him away, and he rolled over in the gritty
black dust.
Instinctively he curled into a ball, but nothing happened. Instead of the on-
slaught of fury he expected he opened his eyes to see the creature limping away
from him, various liquids leaking from it.
It was the first time anything had ever run away from Rincewind.
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