Mort wrenched the blade from the doorway and shook it furiously but ineffectually towards Albert, who flinched.
'Write down the spell, then,' he shouted. 'And do it fast!'
He turned on his heel and stalked back into Death's study. There was a large disc of the world in one corner, complete down to solid silver elephants standing on the back of a Great A'Tuin cast in bronze and more than a metre long. The great rivers were represented by veins of jade, the deserts by powdered diamond and the most notable cities were picked out in precious stones; Ankh-Morpork, for instance, was a carbuncle.
He plonked the two glasses down at the approximate locations of their owners and flopped down in Death's chair, glaring at them, willing them to be closer together. The chair squeaked gently as he swivelled from side to side, glowering at the little disc.
After a while Ysabell came in, treading softly.
'Albert's written it down,' she said quietly, 'I've checked the book. It isn't a trick. He's gone and locked himself in his room now and —'
'Look at these two! I mean, will you look at them!'
'I think you should calm down a bit, Mort.'
'How can I calm down with, look, this one over here almost in the Great Nef, and this one right in Bes Pelargic and then I've got to get back to Sto Lat. That's a ten thousand mile round trip however you look at it. It can't be done.'
'I'm sure you'll find a way. And I'll help.'
He looked at her for the first time and saw she was wearing her outdoor coat, the unsuitable one with the big fur collar.
'You? What could you do?'
'Binky can easily carry two,' said Ysabell meekly. She waved a paper package vaguely. 'I've packed us something to eat. I could – hold open doors and things.'
Mort laughed mirthlessly. THAT WON'T BE NECESSARY.
'I wish you'd stop talking like that.'
'I can't take passengers. You'll slow me down.'
Ysabell sighed. 'Look, how about this? Let's pretend we've had the row and I've won. See? It saves a lot of effort. I actually think you might find Binky rather reluctant to go if I'm not there. I've fed him an awful lot of sugar lumps over the years. Now – are we going?'
Albert sat on his narrow bed, glowering at the wall. He heard the sound of hoofbeats, abruptly cut off as Binky got airborne, and muttered under his breath.
Twenty minutes passed. Expressions flitted across the old wizard's face like cloud shadows across a hillside. Occasionally he'd whisper something to himself, like 'I told 'em' or 'Never would of stood for it' or The master ought to be tole'.
Eventually he seemed to reach an agreement with himself, knelt down gingerly and pulled a battered trunk from under his bed. He opened it with difficulty and unfolded a dusty grey robe that scattered mothballs and tarnished sequins across the floor. He pulled it on, brushed off the worst of the dust, and crawled under the bed again. There was a lot of muffled cursing and the occasional clink of china and finally Albert emerged holding a staff taller than he was.
It was thicker than any normal staff, mainly because of the carvings that covered it from top to bottom. They were actually quite indistinct, but gave the impression that if you could see them better you would regret it.
Albert brushed himself down again and examined himself critically in the washstand mirror.
Then he said, 'Hat. No hat. Got to have a hat for the wizarding. Damn.'
He stamped out of the room and returned after a busy fifteen minutes which included a circular hole cut out of the carpet in Mort's bedroom, the silver paper taken out from behind the mirror in Ysabell's room, a needle and thread from the box under the sink in the kitchen and a few loose sequins scraped up from the bottom of the robe chest. The end result was not as good as he would have liked and tended to slip rakishly over one eye, but it was black and had stars and moons on it and proclaimed its owner to be, without any doubt, a wizard, although possibly a desperate one.
He felt properly dressed for the first time in two thousand years. It was a disconcerting feeling and caused him a second's reflection before he kicked aside the rag rug beside the bed and used the staff to draw a circle on the floor.
When the tip of the staff passed it left a line of glowing octarine, the eighth colour of the spectrum, the colour of magic, the pigment of the imagination.
He marked eight points on its circumference and joined them up to form an octogram. A low throbbing began to fill the room.
Alberto Malich stepped into the centre and held the staff above his head. He felt it wake to his grip, felt the tingle of the sleeping power unfold itself slowly and deliberately, like a waking tiger. It triggered old memories of power and magic that buzzed through the cobwebbed attics of his mind. He felt alive for the first time in centuries.
He licked his lips. The throbbing had died away, leaving a strange, waiting kind of silence.
Malich raised his head and shouted one single syllable.