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'What? In his head?'
'Um. No. In the fabric of the Universe,' said Wert. 'He might think he can control it by himself, but —'
They felt the sound before they heard it. It started off in the stones as a slow vibration, then rose suddenly to a knife-edge whine that bypassed the eardrums and bored straight into the brain. It sounded like a human voice singing, or chanting, or screamfng, but there were deeper and more horrible harmonics.
The wizards went pale. Then, as one man, they turned and ran up the steps.
There were crowds outside the building. Some people were holding torches, others had stopped in the act of piling kindling around the walls. But everyone was staring up at the Tower of Art.
The wizards pushed their way through the unheeding bodies, and turned to look up.
The sky was full of moons. Each one was three times bigger than the Disc's own moon, and each was in shadow except for a pink crescent where it caught the light of the star.
But in front of everything the top of the Tower of Art was an incandescent fury. Shapes could be dimly glimpsed within it, but there was nothing reassuring about them. The sound had changed now to the wasplike buzzing, magnified a million times.
Some of the wizards sank to their knees.
'He's done it,' said Wert, shaking his head. 'He's opened a pathway.'
'Are those things demons?' said Twoflower.
'Oh, demons,' said Wert. 'Demons would be a picnic compared with what's trying to come through up there.'
'They're worse than anything we can possibly imagine,' said Panter.
'I can imagine some pretty bad things,' said Rincewind.
'These are worse.'
'Oh.'
'And what do you propose to do about it?' said a clear voice.
They turned. Bethan was glaring at them, arms folded.
'Pardon?' said Wert.
'You're wizards, aren't you?' she said. 'Well, get on with it.'
'What, tackle that?' said Rincewind.
'Know anyone else?'
Wert pushed forward. 'Madam, I don't think you quite understand —'
'The Dungeons Dimensions will empty into our Universe, right?' said Bethan.
'Well, yes —'
'We'll all be eaten by things with tentacles for faces, right?'
'Nothing so pleasant, but —'
'And you're just going to let it happen?'
'Listen,' said Rincewind. 'It's all over, do you see? You can't put the spells back in the book, you can't unsay what's been said, you can't —'
'You can try!'
