The human mind is an astonishing thing. It can operate on several levels at once. And, in fact, while Rincewind had been wasting his intellect in groaning and looking for his hat, an inner part of his brain had been observing, assessing, analysing and comparing.
Now it crept up to his cerebellum, tapped it on the shoulder, thrust a message into its hand and ran for it.
The message ran something like this: I hope I find me well. The last trial of magic has been too much for the tortured fabric of reality. It has opened a hole. I am in the Dungeon Dimensions. And the things in front of me are ... the Things. It has been nice knowing me.
The particular thing nearest Rincewind was at least twenty feet high. It looked like a dead horse that had been dug up after three months and then introduced to a range of new experiences, at least one of which had included an octopus.
It hadn't noticed Rincewind. It was too busy concentrating on the light.
Rincewind crawled back to the still body of Coin and nudged it gently.
'Are you alive?' he said. 'If you're not, I'd prefer it if you didn't answer.'
Coin rolled over and stared up at him with puzzled eyes. After a while he said, 'I remember-’
'Best not to,' said Rincewind.
The boy's hand groped vaguely in the sand beside him.
'It isn't here any more,' said Rincewind, quietly. The hand stopped its searching.
Rincewind helped Coin to sit up. He looked blankly at the cold silver sand, then at the sky, then at the distant Things, and then at Rincewind.
'I don't know what to do,' he said.
'No harm in that. I've never known what to do,' said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. 'Been completely at a loss my whole life.' He hesitated. 'I think it's called being human, or something.'
'But I've always known what to do!'
Rincewind opened his mouth to say that he'd seen some of it, but changed his mind. Instead he said, 'Chin up. Look on the bright side. It could be worse.'
Coin took another look around.
'In what respect, exactly?' he said, his voice a shade more normal.
Um.'
'What is this place?'
'It's a sort of other dimension. The magic broke through and we went with it, I think.'
'And those things?'
They regarded the Things.
'I think they're Things. They're trying to get back through the hole,' said Rincewind. 'It isn't easy. Energy levels, or something. I remember we had a lecture on them once. Er.'
Coin nodded, and reached out a thin pale hand towards Rincewind's forehead.
'Do you mind-?' he began.
Rincewind shuddered at the touch. 'Mind what?' he said.
- if I have a look in your head?
'Aargh.'
It's rather a mess in here. No wonder you can't find things.
'Ergh.'
You ought to have a clear out.
'Oogh.'
Ah.'
Rincewind felt the presence retreat. Coin frowned.
'We can't let them get through,' he announced. 'They have horrible powers. They're trying to will the hole bigger, and they can do it. They've been waiting to break into our world for-’ he frowned -’ians?'
'Aeons,' said Rincewind.
Coin opened his other hand, which had been tightly clenched, and showed Rincewind the small grey pearl.
'Do you know what this is?' he said.
'No. What is it?'
'I--can't remember. But we should put it back.'
'Okay. Just use sourcery. Blow them to bits and let's go home.'
'No. They live on magic. It'd only make them worse. I can't use magic.'
'Are you sure?' said Rincewind.
'I'm afraid your memory was very clear on the subject.'
'Then what shall we do?'
'I don't know!'
Rincewind thought about this and then, with an air of finality, started to take off his last sock.
'No half-bricks,' he said, to no-one in particular. 'Have to use sand.'
'You're going to attack them with a sockful of sand?'
'No. I'm going to run away from them. The sockful of sand is for when they follow.'
People were returning to Al Khali, where the ruined tower was a smoking heap of stones. A few brave souls turned their attention to the wreckage, on the basis that there might be survivors who could be rescued or looted or both.
And, among the rubble, the following conversation might have been heard:
'There's something moving under here!'
'Under that? By the two beards of Imtal, you are mishearing. It must weigh a ton.'
'Over here, brothers!'
And then sounds of much heaving would have been heard, and then:
'It's a box!'
'It could be treasure, do you think?'
'It's growing legs, by the Seven Moons of Nasreem!'
'Five moons-’
'Where'd it go? Where'd it go?'
'Never mind about that, it's not important. Let's get this straight, according to the legend it was five moons-'
In Klatch they take their mythology seriously. It's only real life they don't believe.
The three horsepersons sensed the change as they descended through the heavy snowclouds at the Hub end of the Sto Plain. There was a sharp scent in the air.
'Can't you smell it?' said Nijel, 'I remember it when I was a boy, when you lay in bed on that first morning in winter, and you could sort of taste it in the air and-’
The clouds parted below them and there, filling the high plains country from end to end, were the herds of the Ice Giants.
They stretched for miles in every direction, and the thunder of their stampede filled the air.
The bull glaciers were in the lead, bellowing their vast creaky calls and throwing up great sheets of earth as they ploughed relentlessly forward. Behind them pressed the great mass of cows and their calves, skimming over land already ground down to the bedrock by the leaders.
They bore as much resemblance to the familiar glaciers the world thought it knew as a lion dozing in the shade bears to three hundred pounds of wickedly coordinated muscle bounding towards you with its mouth open.
'... and ... and ... when you went to the window,' Nijel's mouth, lacking any further input from his brain, ran down.
Moving, jostling ice packed the plain, roaring forward under a great cloud of clammy steam. The ground shook as the leaders passed below, and it was obvious to the onlookers that whoever was going to stop this would need more than a couple of pounds of rock salt and a shovel.
'Go on, then,' said Conina, 'explain. I think you'd better shout.
Nijel looked distractedly at the herd.
'I think I can see some figures,' said Creosote helpfully. 'Look, on top of the leading ... things.'
Nijel peered through the snow. There were indeed beings moving around on the backs of the glaciers. They were human, or humanoid, or at least humanish. They didn't look very big.
That turned out to be because the glaciers themselves were very big, and Nijel wasn't very good at perspective. As the horses flew lower over the leading glacier, a huge bull heavily crevassed and scarred by moraine, it became apparent that one reason why the Ice Giants were known as the Ice Giants was because they were, well, giants.
The other was that they were made of ice.
A figure the size of a large house was crouched at the crest of the bull, urging it to greater efforts by means of a spike on a long pole. It was craggy, in fact it was more nearly faceted, and glinted green and blue in the light; there was a thin band of silver in its snowy locks, and its eyes were tiny and black and deep set, like lumps of coal.[24]
There was a splintering crash ahead as the leading glaciers smacked into a forest. Birds rattled up in panic. Snow and splinters rained down around Nijel as he galloped on the air alongside the giant.
He cleared his throat.
'Erm,’ he said, 'excuse me?'
Ah
ead of the boiling surf of earth, snow and smashed timber a herd of caribou was running in blind panic, their rear hooves a few feet from the tumbling mess.
Nijel tried again.
'I say?' he shouted.
The giant's head turned towards him.
'Vot you want?' it said. 'Go avay, hot person.'
'Sorry, but is this really necessary?'
The giant looked at him in frozen astonishment. It turned around slowly and regarded the rest of the herd, which seemed to stretch all the way to the Hub. It looked at Nijel again.
'Yarss,' it said, 'I tink so. Otherwise, why ve do it?'
'Only there's a lot of people out there who would prefer you not to, you see', said Nijel, desperately. A rock spire loomed briefly ahead of the glacier, rocked for a second and then vanished.
He added, Also children and small furry animals.'
'They vill suffer in the cause of progress. Now is the time ve reclaim the world,' rumbled the giant. 'Whole vorld of ice. According to inevitability of history and triumph of thermodynamics.'
'Yes, but you don't have to,' said Nijel.
'Ve vant to,' said the giant. 'The gods are gone, ve throw off shackles of outmoded superstition.'
'Freezing the whole world solid doesn't sound very progressive to me,' said Nijel.
'Ve like it.'
'Yes, yes,' said Nijel, in the maniacally glazed tones of one who is trying to see all sides of the issue and is certain that a solution will be found if people of goodwill will only sit around a table and discuss things rationally like sensible human beings. 'But is this the right time? Is the world ready for the triumph of ice?'
'It bloody veil better be,' said the giant, and swung his glacier prod at Nijel. It missed the horse but caught him full in the chest, lifting him clean out of the saddle and flicking him on to the glacier itself. He spun, spreadeagled, down its freezing flanks, was carried some way by the boil of debris, and rolled into the slush of ice and mud between the speeding walls.
He staggered to his feet, and peered hopelessly into the freezing fog. Another glacier bore down directly on him.
So did Conina. She leaned over as her horse swept down out of the fog, caught Nijel by his leather barbarian harness, and swung him up in front of her.
As they rose again he wheezed, 'Cold-hearted bastard. I really thought I was getting somewhere for a moment there. You just can't talk to some people.'
The herd breasted another hill, scraping off quite a lot of it, and the Sto Plain, studded with cities, lay helpless before it.
Rincewind sidled towards the nearest Thing, holding Coin with one hand and swinging the loaded sock in the other.
'No magic, right?' he said.
'Yes,' said the boy.
'Whatever happens, you musn't use magic?'
'That's it. Not here. They haven't got much power here, if you don't use magic. Once they break through, though ...'
His voice trailed away.
'Pretty awful,' Rincewind nodded.
'Terrible,' said Coin.
Rincewind sighed. He wished he still had his hat. He'd just have to do without it.
All right,' he said. 'When I shout, you make a run for the light. Do you understand? No looking back or anything. No matter what happens.'
'No matter what?' said Coin uncertainly.
'No matter what.' Rincewind gave a brave little smile. 'Especially no matter what you hear.'
He was vaguely cheered to see Coin's mouth become an 'O' of terror.
'And then,' he continued, 'when you get back to the other side-’
'What shall I do?'
Rincewind hesitated. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Anything you can. As much magic as you like. Anything. Just stop them. And ... um ...'
'Yes?'
Rincewind gazed up at the Thing, which was still staring into the light.
'If it ... you know ... if anyone gets out of this, you know, and everything is all right after all, sort of thing, Id like you to sort of tell people I sort of stayed here. Perhaps they could sort of write it down somewhere. I mean, I wouldn't want a statue or anything,' he added virtuously.
After a while he added, 'I think you ought to blow your nose.'
Coin did so, on the hem of his robe, and then shook Rincewind's hand solemnly.
'If ever you ...' he began, 'that is, you're the first ... it's been a great ... you see, I never really ...' His voice trailed off, and then he said, 'I just wanted you to know that.'
'There was something else I was trying to say,' said Rincewind, letting go of the hand. He looked blank for a moment, and then added, 'Oh, yes. It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.'
'I'll try and remember,' said Coin.
'It's very important,' Rincewind repeated, almost to himself. 'And now I think you'd better run.'
Rincewind crept closer to the Thing. This particular one had chicken legs, but most of the rest of it was mercifully hidden in what looked like folded wings.
It was, he thought, time for a few last words. What he said now was likely to be very important. Perhaps they would be words that would be remembered, and handed down, and maybe even carved deeply in slabs of granite.
Words without too many curly letters in, therefore.
'I really wish I wasn't here,' he muttered.
He hefted the sock, whirled it once or twice, and smashed the Thing on what he hoped was its kneecap.
It gave a shrill buzz, spun wildly with its wings creaking open, lunged vaguely at Rincewind with its vulture head and got another sockful of sand on the upswing.
Rincewind looked around desperately as the Thing staggered back, and saw Coin still standing where he had left him. To his horror he saw the boy begin to walk towards him, hands raised instinctively to fire the magic which, here, would doom both of them.
'Run away, you idiot!' he screamed, as the Thing began to gather itself for a counter-attack. From out of nowhere he found the words, 'You know what happens to boys who are bad!'
Coin went pale, turned and ran towards the light. He moved as though through treacle, fighting against the entropy slope. The distorted image of the world turned inside out hovered a few feet away, then inches, wavering uncertainly ...
A tentacle curled around his leg, tumbling him forward.
He flung his hands out as he fell, and one of them touched snow. It was immediately grabbed by something else that felt like a warm, soft leather glove, but under the gentle touch was a grip as tough as tempered steel and it tugged him forward, also dragging whatever it was that had caught him.
Light and grainy dark flicked around him and suddenly he was sliding over cobbles slicked with ice.
The Librarian let go his hold and stood over Coin with a length of heavy wooden beam in his hand. For a moment the ape reared against the darkness, the shoulder, elbow and wrist of his right arm unfolding in a poem of applied leverage, and in a movement as unstoppable as the dawn of intelligence brought it down very heavily. There was a squashy noise and an offended screech, and the burning pressure on Coin's leg vanished.
The dark column wavered. There were squeals and thumps coming from it, distorted by distance.
Coin struggled to his feet and started to run back into the dark, but this time the Librarian's arm blocked his path.
'We can't just leave him in there!'
The ape shrugged.
There was another crackle from the dark, and then a moment of almost complete silence.
But only almost complete. Both of them thought they heard, a long way off but very distinct, the sound of running feet fading into the distance.
They found an echo in the outside world. The ape glanced around, and then pushed Coin hurriedly to one side as something squat and battered and with hundreds of little legs barrelled across the stricken courtyard and, without so much as pausing in its stride, leapt into the disappeari
ng darkness, which flickered for one last time and vanished.
There was a sudden flurry of snow across the air where it had been.
Coin wrenched free of the Librarian's grip and ran into the circle, which was already turning white. His feet scuffed up a sprinkle of fine sand.
'He didn't come out!' he said.
'Oook,' said the Librarian, in a philosophic manner.
'I thought he'd come out. You know, just at the last minute.'
'Oook?'
Coin looked closely at the cobbles, as if by mere concentration he could change what he saw. 'Is he dead?'
'Gook,' observed the Librarian, contriving to imply that Rincewind was in a region where even things like time and space were a bit iffy, and that it was probably not very useful to speculate as to his exact state at this point in time, if indeed he was at any point in time at all, and that, all in all, he might even turn up tomorrow or, for that matter, yesterday, and finally that if there was any chance at all of surviving then Rincewind almost certainly would.
'Oh,' said Coin.
He watched the Librarian shuffle around and head back for the Tower of Art, and a desperate loneliness overcame him.
'I say!' he yelled.
'Gook?'
'What should I do now?'
'Gook?'
Coin waved vaguely at the desolation.
'You know, perhaps I could do something about all this?', he said in a voice tilting on the edge of terror. 'Do you think that would be a good idea? I mean, I could help people. I'm sure you’d like to be human again, wouldn't you?'
The Librarian's everlasting smile hoisted itself a little further up his face, just enough to reveal his teeth.
'Okay, perhaps not,' said Coin hurriedly, 'but there's other things I could do, isn't there?'
The Librarian gazed at him for some time, then dropped his eyes to the boy's hand. Coin gave a guilty start, and opened his fingers.
The ape caught the little silver ball neatly before it hit the ground and held it up to one eye. He sniffed it, shook it gently, and listened to it for a while.
Then he wound up his arm and flung it away as hard as possible.
'What-’ Coin began, and landed full length in the snow when the Librarian pushed him over and dived on top of him.
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