One thing the innkeeper’s brain couldn’t shut out was the sound of the voices. This one sounded as though someone was hitting a rock with a roll of sheet lead.
BAR PERSON.
The innkeeper groaned faintly. The thermic lances of horror were melting their way steadily through the steel door of his mind.
LET ME SEE, NOW. THAT’S A - WHAT WAS IT AGAIN
‘A Bloody Mary.’ This voice made a simple drinks order sound like the opening of hostilities.
OH, YES. AND
‘Mine was a small egg none,’ said Pestilence.
AN EGG NOW.
‘With a cherry in it.’
GOOD, lied the heavy voice. AND THAT’LL BE A SMALL PORT WINE FOR ME AND, the speaker glanced across the table at the fourth member of the quartet and sighed, YOU’D BETTER BRING ANOTHER BOWL OF PEANUTS.
About three hundred yards down the road the horse thieves were trying to come to terms with a new experience.
‘Certainly a smooth ride,’ Nijel managed eventually.
‘And a lovely - a lovely view,’ said Creosote, his voice lost in the slipstream.
‘But I wonder,’ said Nijel, ‘if we have done exactly the right thing.’
‘We’re moving, aren’t we?’ demanded Conina. ‘Don’t be petty.’
‘It’s just that, well, looking at cumulus clouds from above is-’
‘Shut up.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Anyway, they’re stratus. Cumulus at most.’
‘Right,’ said Nijel miserably.
‘Does it make any difference?’ said Creosote, who was lying flat on his horse’s neck with his eyes shut.
‘About a thousand feet.’
‘Oh.’
‘Could be seven hundred and fifty,’ conceded Conina.
‘Ah.’
The tower of sourcery trembled. Coloured smoke rolled through its vaulted rooms and shining corridors. In the big room at the very tip, where the air was thick and greasy and tasted of burning tin, many wizards had passed out with the sheer mental effort of the battle. But enough remained. They sat in a wide circle, locked in concentration.
It was just possible to see the shimmering in the air as the raw sourcery swirled out of the staff in Coin’s hand and into the centre of the octogram.
Outlandish shapes appeared for a brief instant and vanished. The very fabric of reality was being put through the wringer in there.
Carding shuddered, and turned away in case he saw anything he really couldn’t ignore.
The surviving senior wizards had a simulacrum of the Disc hovering in front of them. As Carding looked at it again the little red glow over the city of Quirm flared and went out.