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They hadn't even bothered to answer the invitations. And he'd made a special point of putting RSVP on them.
“Demon?” Eric peered around the door. “What shape are you?” he said. “Pretty poor shape,” said Rincewind. “I've brought you some food. You do eat, do you?” Rincewind tried some. It was a bowl of cereal, nuts, and dried fruit. He didn't have any
quarrel with any of that. It was just that somewhere in the preparation something had apparently done to these innocent ingredients what it takes a million gravities to do a neutron star. If you died of eating this sort of thing they wouldn't have to bury you, they would just need to drop you somewhere where the ground was soft.
He managed to swallow it. It wasn't difficult. The trick would have been preventing it from heading downwards. “Lovely,” he choked. The parrot did a splendid impersonation of someone being sick. “I've decided to let you go,” said Eric. “It's pretty pointless keeping you, isn't it.” “Absolutely.” “You haven't any powers at all?” “Sorry. Dead failure.”
“You don't look too demonic, come to think about it,” said Eric. “They never do. You can't trust them wossnames,” chortled the parrot. It lost its balance again. “Polly want a biscuit,” it said, upside down.
Rincewind spun around. “You stay out of this beaky!” There was a sound behind them, like the universe clearing its throat. The chalk marks of the magic circle grew terribly bright for a moment, became fiery lines against the scuffed planks, and something dropped out of the empty air and landed heavily on the floor.
It was a large, metal-bound chest. It had fallen on its curved lid. After a while it started to rock violently, and then it extended hundreds of little pink legs and with considerable effort flipped itself over.
Finally it shuffled around until it was watching the pair of them. It was all the more disconcerting because it was staring without having any eyes to do it with. Eric moved first. He grasped the home-made magic sword, which flapped wildly. “You are a demon!” he said. “I nearly believed you when you said you weren't!”
“Wheee!” said the parrot. “It's just my luggage,” said Rincewind desperately. “It's a sort of... well. it goes everywhere with me, there's nothing demonic about it... er.” He hesitated. “Not much, anyway,” he finished lamely.
“Avaunt!” “Oh, not again.” The boy looked at the open book. “My commands earlier resume,” he said firmly. "The
most beautiful woman who has ever lived, mastery of all the kingdoms of the world, and to live forever. Get on with it.“ Rincewind stood frozen. ”Well, go on,“ said Eric. ”You're supposed to disappear in a puff of smoke.“ ”Listen, do you think I can just snap my fingers -" Rincewind snapped his fingers. There was a puff of smoke.
Rincewind gave his fingers a long shocked stare, as one might regard a gun that has been hanging on the wall for decades and has suddenly gone off and perforated the cat.
“They've hardly ever done that before,” he said.
He looked down.
“Aargh,” he said, and closed his eyes.
It was a better world in the darkness behind his eyelids. If he tapped his foot he could persuade himself that he could feel the floor, he could know that he was really standing in the room, and that the urgent signals from all his other senses, which were telling him that he was suspended in the air some thousand miles or so above the Disc, were just a bad dream he'd wake up from. He hastily cancelled that thought. If he was asleep he'd prefer to stay that way. You could fly in dreams. If he woke up, it was a long way to fall.
Perhaps I have died and I really am a demon, he thought.
It was an interesting point.
He opened his eyes again.
“Wow!” said Eric, his eyes gleaming. “Can I have all of it?”
The boy was standing in the same position he had been in the room. So was the luggage. So, to Rincewind's annoyance, was the parrot. It was perching in mid-air, looking speculatively at the cosmic panorama below.
The Disc might almost have been designed to be seen from space; it hadn't, Rincewind was damn sure, been designed to be lived on. But he had to admit that it was impressive.
The sun was about to rise on the far rim and made a line of fire that glittered around half the circumference. A long slow dawn was just beginning its sweep across the dark, massive landscape.
Below, harshly lit in the arid vacuum of space, Great A'Tuin the world turtle toiled under the weight of Creation. On his - or her, the matter had never really been resolved -carapace the four giant elephants strained to support the Disc itself.
There might have been more efficient ways to build a world. You might start with a ball of molten iron and then coat it with successive layers of rock, like an old-fashioned gobstopper. And you'd have a very efficient planet, but it wouldn't look so nice. Besides, things would drop off the bottom.
“Pretty good,” said the parrot. “Polly want a continent.” “It's so big,” breathed Eric. “Yes,” said Rincewind flatly. He felt that something more was expected of him. “Don't break it,” he added. He had a nagging doubt about all this. If he was for the sake of argument a demon, and
so many things had happened to him recently he was prepared to concede that he might have died and not noticed it in the confusion*, then he still didn't quite see how the world was his to give away. (*Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, “Where's my clean socks?”, no-one answers.) He was pretty sure that it had owners who felt the same way.
Also, he was sure that a demon had to get something in writing. “I think that you have to sign for it,” he said. “In blood.” “Whose?” said Eric. “Yours, I think,” said Rincewind. “Or bird blood will do, at a pinch.” He glared
meaningfully at the parrot, which growled at him. “Aren't I allowed to try it out first?” “What?” “Well suppose it doesn't work? I'm not signing for it until I've seen it work.” Rincewind stared at the boy. Then he looked down at the broad panorama of the
kingdoms of the world. I wonder if I was like him at his age? he thought. I wonder how I
