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'He should have a red hat,' said Twoflower. 'And he certainly ought to be cleaner and more, more sort of jolly. He doesn't look like any sort of gnome to me.'
'What are you going on about?'
'Look at that beard,' said Twoflower sternly. 'I've seen better beards on a piece of cheese.'
'Look, he's six inches high and lives in a mushroom,' snarled Rincewind. 'Of course he's a bloody gnome.'
'We've only got his word for it.'
Rincewind looked down at the gnome.
'Excuse me,' he said. He took Twoflower to the other side of the clearing.
'Listen,' he said between his teeth. 'If he was fifteen feet tall and said he was a giant we'd only have his word for that too, wouldn't we?'
Good idea.'
'Seems reasonable.'
'Get on with it, then.'
Slightly put out, he summoned a procession of lesser wizards who carried various magical implements into the hall.
It has already been hinted that around this time there was some disagreement among the fraternity of wizards about how to practise magic.
Younger wizards in particular went about saying that it was time that magic started to update its image and that they should all stop mucking about with bits of wax and bone and put the whole thing on a properly-organised basis, with research programmes and three-day conventions in good hotels where they could read papers with titles like 'Whither Geomancy?' and The role of Seven-League Boots in a caring society.'
Trymon, for example, hardly ever did any magic these days but ran the Order with hourglass efficiency and wrote lots of memos and had a big chart on his office wall, covered with coloured blobs and flags and lines that no-one else really understood but which looked very impressive.
The other type of wizard thought all this was so much marsh gas and wouldn't have anything to do with an image unless it was made of wax and had pins stuck in it.
The heads of the eight orders were all of this persuasion, traditionalists to a mage, and the utensils that were heaped around the octogram had a definite, no-nonsense occult look about them. Rams horns, skulls, baroque metalwork and heavy candles were much in evidence, despite the discovery by younger wizards that the Rite of AshkEnte could perfectly well be performed with three small bits of wood and 4 cc of mouse blood.
The preparations normally took several hours, but the combined powers of the senior wizards shortened it considerably and, after a mere forty minutes, Galder chanted the final words of the spell. They hung in front of him for a moment before dissolving.
The air in the centre of the octogram shimmered and thickened, and suddenly contained a tall, dark figure.
Most of it was hidden by a black robe and hood and this was probably just as well. It held a long scythe in one hand and one couldn't help noticing that what should have been fingers were simply white bone.
The other skeletal hand held small cubes of cheese and pineapple on a stick.
WELL? said Death, in a voice with all the warmth and colour of an iceberg. He caught the wizards' gaze, and glanced down at the stick.
I WAS AT A PARTY, he added, a shade reproachfully.
'O Creature of Earth and Darkness, we do charge thee to abjure from—' began Galder in a firm, commanding voice. Death nodded.
YES, YES, I KNOW ALL THAT, he said. WHY HAVE YOU SUMMONED ME?
'It is said that you can see both the past and future,' said Galder a little sulkily, because the big speech of binding and conjuration was one he rather liked and people had said he was very good at it.
THAT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Then perhaps you can tell us what exactly it was that happened this morning?' said Galder. He pulled himself together, and added loudly, 'I command this by Azimrothe, by T'chikel, by—'
ALL RIGHT, YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT, said Death. WHAT PRECISELY WAS IT YOU WISHED TO KNOW? QUITE A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENED THIS MORNING, PEOPLE WERE BORN, PEOPLE DIED, ALL THE TREES GREW A BIT TALLER, RIPPLES MADE INTERESTING PATTERNS ON THE SEA—
'I mean about the Octavo,' said Galder coldly.
