#twoflower was put on a box so that the picture has him and rincewind with great relief preferred his face to be left out instead

[xylophone888]

i love my aus so much i got fired from my job as the nonposting beauty

heres one of em

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'Unless it was stuffed with rocks,' said the astrologer, in a wretched and, as it turned out, entirely unsuccessful attempt to lighten the mood. 'But come down he must – somewhere. Where? we ask ourselves.' 'Where?' said the astrologer loyally. 'And immediately a course of action suggests itself to us.' 'Ah,' said the astrologer, running in an attempt to keep up as the wizard stalked across The Two Fat Cousins. 'And that course is . . .?' The astrologer looked up into two eyes as grey and bland as steel. 'Um. We stop looking?' he ventured. 'Precisely! We use the gifts the Creator has given us, to whit, we look down and what is it we see?' The astrologer groaned inwardly. He looked down. 'Tiles?' he hazarded. 'Tiles, yes, which together make up the . . .?' Trymon looked expectant. 'Zodiac?' ventured the astrologer, a desperate man. 'Right! And therefore all we need do is cast Rincewind's precise horoscope and we will know exactly where he is!' The astrologer grinned like a man who, having tap-danced on quicksand, feels the press of solid rock under his feet. 'I shall need to know his precise place and time of birth,' he said. 'Easily done. I copied them out of the University files before I came up here.' The astrologer looked at the notes, and his forehead wrinkled. He crossed the room and pulled out a wide drawer full of charts. He read the notes again. He picked up a complicated pair of compasses and made some passes across the charts. He picked up a small brass astrolobe and cranked it carefully. He whistled between his teeth. He picked up a piece of chalk and scribbled some numbers on a blackboard. Trymon, meanwhile, had been staring out at the new star. He thought: the legend in the Pyramid of Tsort says that whoever says the Eight Spells together when the Disc is in danger will obtain all that he truly desires. And it will be so soon! And he thought: I remember Rincewind, wasn't he the cruffy boy who always came bottom of the class when we were training? Not a magical bone in his body. Let me get him in front of me, and we'll see if we can't get all eight— The astrologer said 'Gosh' under his breath. Trymon spun around. 'Well?' 'Fascinating chart,' said the astrologer, breathlessly. His forehead wrinkled. 'Bit strange, really,' he said. 'How strange?' 'He was born under The Small Boring Group of Faint Stars which, as you know, lies between The Flying Moose and The Knotted String. It is said that even the ancients couldn't find anything interesting to say about the sign, which—' 'Yes, yes, get on with it,' said Trymon irritably. 'It's the sign traditionally associated with chess board makers, sellers of onions, manufacturers of plaster images of small religious significance, and people allergic to pewter. Not a wizard's sign at all. And at the time of his birth the shadow of Cori Celesti—' 'I don't want to know all the mechanical details,' growled Trymon. 'Just give me his horoscope.' The astrologer, who had been rather enjoying himself, sighed and made a few additional calculations. 'Very well,'he said. 'It reads as follows: “Today is a good tine for making new friends. A good deed may have unforeseen consequences. Don't upset any druids. You will soon be going on a very strange journey. Your lucky food is small cucumbers. People pointing knives at you are probably up to no good. PS, we really mean it about druids”.' Druids?' said Trymon. 'I wonder . . .' 'Are you all right?' said Twoflower. Rincewind opened his eyes. The wizard sat up hurriedly and grabbed Twoflower by the shirt. 'I want to leave here!' he said urgently. 'Right now!' 'But there's going to be an ancient and traditional ceremony I' 'I don't care how ancient! I want the feel of honest cobbles under my feet, I want the old familiar smell of cesspits, I want to go where there's lots of people and fires and roofs and walls and friendly things like that! I want to go home!' He found that he had this sudden desperate longing for the fuming, smoky streets of Ankh-Morpork, which was always at its best in the spring, when the gummy sheen on the turbid waters of the Ankh River had a special iridescence and the eaves were full of birdsong, or at least birds coughing rhythmically. A tear sprang to his eye as he recalled the subtle play of light on the Temple of Small Gods, a noted local landmark, and a lump came to his throat when he remembered the fried fish stall on the junction of Midden Street and The Street of Cunning Artificers. He thought of the gherkins they sold there, great green things lurking at the bottom of their jar like drowned whales. They called to Rincewind across the miles, promising to introduce him to the pickled eggs in the next jar. He thought of the cosy livery stable lofts and warm gratings where he spent his nights. Foolishly, he had sometimes jibed at this way of life. It seemed incredible now, but he had found it boring. Now he'd had enough. He was going home. Pickled gherkins, I hear you calling . . . He pushed Twoflower aside, gathered his tattered robe around him with great dignity, set his face towards that area of horizon he believed to contain the city of his birth, and with intense determination and considerable absentmindedness stepped right off the top of a thirty-foot trilithon. Some ten minutes later, when a worried and rather contrite Twoflower dug him out of the large snowdrift at the base of the stones, his expression hadn't changed. Twoflower peered at him. 'Are you all right?' he said. 'How many fingers am I holding up?' 'I want to go home!' 'Okay.' 'No, don't try and talk me out of it, I've had enough, I'd like to say it's been great fun but I can't, and – what?' 'I said okay,' said Twoflower. 'I'd quite like to see Ankh-Morpork again. I expect they've rebuilt quite a lot of it by now.' It should be noted that the last time the two of them had seen the city it was burning quite fiercely, a fact which had a lot to do with Twoflower introducing the concept of fire insurance to a venial but ignorant populace. But devastating fires were a regular feature of Morporkian life and it had always been cheerfully and meticulously rebuilt, using the traditional local materials of tinder-dry wood and thatch waterproofed with tar. 'Oh,' said Rincewind, deflating a bit. 'Oh, right. Right then. Good. Perhaps we'd better be off, then.' He scrambled up and brushed the snow off himself. 'Only I think we should wait until morning,' added Twoflower. 'Why?' 'Well, because it's freezing cold, we don't really know where we are, the Luggage has gone missing, it's getting dark—' Rincewind paused. In the deep canyons of his mind he thought he heard the distant rustle of ancient paper. He had a horrible feeling that his dreams were going to be very repetitive from now on, and he had much better things to do than be lectured by a bunch of ancient spells who couldn't even agree on how the Universe began — A tiny dry voice at the back of his brain said: What things? 'Oh, shut up,' he said. 'I only said it's freezing cold and—' Twoflower began. 'I didn't mean you, I meant me.' 'What?' 'Oh, shut up,' said Rincewind wearily. 'I don't suppose there's anything to eat around here?' The giant stones were black and menacing against the dying green light of sunset. The inner circle was full of druids, scurrying around by the light of several bonfires and tuning up all the necessary peripherals of a stone computer, like rams' skulls on poles topped with mistletoe, banners embroidered with twisted snakes and so on. Beyond the circles of firelight a large number of plains people had gathered; druidic festivals were always popular, especially when things went wrong. Rincewind stared at them. 'What's going on?' 'Oh, well,' said Twoflower enthusiastically, 'apparently there's this ceremony dating back for thousands of years to celebrate the, um, rebirth of the moon, or possibly the sun. No, I'm pretty certain it's the moon. Apparently it's very solemn and beautiful and invested with a quiet dignity.' Rincewind shivered. He always began to worry when Twoflower started to talk like that. At least he hadn't said 'picturesque' or 'quaint' yet; Rincewind had never found a satisfactory translation for those words, but the nearest he had been able to come was 'trouble'. 'I wish the Luggage was here,' said the tourist regretfully. 'I could use my picture box. It sounds very quaint and picturesque.' The crowd stirred expectantly. Apparently things were about to start. 'Look,' said Rincewind urgently. 'Druids are priests. You must remember that. Don't do anything to upset them.' 'But—' 'Don't offer to buy the stones.' 'But I-' 'Don't start talking about quaint native folkways.' 'I thought—' 'Really don't try to sell them insurance, that always upsets them.' 'But they're priests!' wailed Twoflower. Rincewind paused. 'Yes,' he said. That's the whole point, isn't it?' At the far side of the outer circle some sort of procession was forming up. 'But priests are good kind men,' said Twoflower. 'At home they go around with begging bowls. It's their only possession,' he added. 'Ah,' said Rincewind, not certain he understood. This would be for putting the blood in, right?' 'Blood?' 'Yes, from sacrifices.' Rincewind thought about the priests he had known at home. He was, of course, anxious not to make an enemy of any god and had attended any number of temple functions and, on the whole, he thought that the most accurate definition of any priest in the Circle Sea Regions was someone who spent quite a lot of time gory to the armpits. Twoflower looked horrified. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Where I come from priests are holy men who have dedicated themselves to lives of poverty, good works and the study of the nature of God.' Rincewind considered this novel proposition. 'No sacrifices?' he said. 'Absolutely not.' Rincewind gave up. 'Well,' he said, 'they don't sound very holy to me.' There was a loud blarting noise from a band of bronze trumpets. Rincewind looked around. A line of druids marched slowly past, their long sickles hung with sprays of mistletoe. Various junior druids and apprentices followed them, playing a variety of percussion instruments that were traditionally supposed to drive away evil spirits and quite probably succeeded. Torchlight made excitingly dramatic patterns on the stones, which stood ominously against the green-lit sky. Hubwards, the shimmering curtains of the aurora coriolis began to wink and glitter among the stars as a million ice rystals danced in the Disc's magical field. 'Belafon explained it all to me,' whispered Twoflower. We're going to see a time-honoured ceremony that celebrates the Oneness of Man with the Universe, that was what he said.' Rincewind looked sourly at the procession. As the druids spread out around a great flat stone that dominated the centre of the circle he couldn't help noticing the attractive if rather pale young lady in their midst. She wore a long white robe, a gold torc around her neck, and an expression of vague apprehension. 'Is she a druidess?' said Twoflower. 'I don't think so,' said Rincewind slowly. The druids began to chant. It was, Rincewind felt, a particularly nasty and rather dull chant which sounded very much as if it was going to build up to an abrupt crescendo. The sight of the young woman lying down on the big stone didn't do anything to derail his train of thought. 'I want to stay,' said Twoflower. 'I think ceremonies like this hark back to a primitive simplicity which—'

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Rincewind said another word. Then he said, in a lower and more urgent tone, 'Actually, I don't think I can hang on any longer.' 'Try.' 'It's no good, I can feel my hand slipping!' Twoflower sighed. It was time for harsh measures. 'All right, then,' he said. 'Drop, then. See if I care.' 'What?' said Rincewind, so astonished he forgot to let go. 'Go on, die. Take the easy way out.' 'Easy?' . 'All you have to do is plummet screaming through the air and break every bone in your body,' said Twoflower. 'Anybody can do it. Go on. I wouldn't want you to think that perhaps you ought to stay alive because we need you to say the Spells and save the Disc. Oh, no. Who cares if we all get burned up? Go on, just think of yourself. Drop.' There was a long, embarrassed silence. 'I don't know why it is,' said Rincewind eventually, in a voice rather louder than necessary, 'but ever since I met you I seem to have spent a lot of time hanging by my fingers over certain depth, have you noticed?' 'Death,' corrected Twoflower. 'Death what?' said Rincewind. 'Certain death,' said Twoflower helpfully, trying to ignore the slow but inexorable slide of his body across the flagstones. 'Hanging over certain death. You don't like heights.' 'Heights I don't mind,' said Rincewind's voice from the darkness. 'Heights I can live with. It's depths that are occupying my attention at the moment. Do you know what I'm going to do when we get out of this?' 'No?' said Twoflower, wedging his toes into a gap in the flagstones and trying to make himself immobile by sheer force of will. 'I'm going to build a house in the flattest country I can find and it's only going to have a ground floor and I'm not even going to wear sandals with thick soles —' The leading torch came around the last turn of the spiral and Twoflower looked down on the grinning face of Cohen. Behind him, still hopping awkwardly up the stones, he could make out the reassuring bulk of the Luggage. 'Everything all right?' said Cohen. 'Can I do anything?' Rincewind took a deep breath. Twoflower recognised the signs. Rincewind was about to say something like, 'Yes, I've got this itch on the back of my neck, you couldn't scratch it, could you, on your way past?' or 'No, I enjoy hanging over bottomless drops' and he decided he couldn't possibly face that. He spoke very quickly. 'Pull Rincewind back onto the stairs,' he snapped. Rincewind deflated in mid-snarl. Cohen caught him around the waist and jerked him unceremoniously onto the stones. 'Nasty mess down on the floor down there,' he said conversationally. 'Who was it?' 'Did it—' Rincewind swallowed, 'did it have – you know – tentacles and things?' 'No,' said Cohen. 'Just the normal bits. Spread out a bit, of course.' Rincewind looked at Twoflower, who shook his head. 'Just a wizard who let things get on top of him,' he said. Unsteadily, with his arms screaming at him, Rincewind let himself be helped back onto the roof of the tower. 'How did you get here?' he added. Cohen pointed to the Luggage, which had trotted over 203 to Twoflower and opened its lid like a dog that knows it's been bad and is hoping that a quick display of affection may avert the rolled-up newspaper of authority. 'Bumpy but fast,' he said admiringly. 'I'll tell you this, no-one tries to stop you.' Rincewind looked up at the sky. It was indeed full of moons, huge cratered discs now ten times bigger than the Disc's tiny satellite. He looked at them without much interest. He felt washed out and stretched well beyond breaking point, as fragile as ancient elastic. He noticed that Twoflower was trying to set up his picture box. Cohen was looking at the seven senior wizards. 'Funny place to put statues,' he said. 'No-one can see them. Mind you, I can't say they're up to much. Very poor work.' Rincewind staggered across and tapped Wert gingerly on the chest. He was solid stone. This is it, he thought. I just want to go home. Hang on, I am home. More or less. So I just want a good sleep, and perhaps it will all be better in the morning. His gaze fell on the Octavo, which was outlined in tiny flashes of octarine fire. Oh yes, he thought. He picked it up and thumbed idly through its pages. They were thick with complex and swirling script that changed and reformed even as he looked at it. It seemed undecided as to what it should be; one moment it was an orderly, matter-of-fact printing; the next a series of angular runes. Then it would be curly Kythian spellscript. Then it would be pictograms in some ancient, evil and forgotten writing that seemed to consist exclusively of unpleasant reptilian beings doing complicated and painful things to one another . . . The last page was empty. Rincewind sighed, and looked in the back of his mind. The Spell looked back. He had dreamed of this moment, how he would finally evict the Spell and take vacant possession of his own head and learn all those lesser spells which had, up until hen, been too frightened to stay in his mind. Somehow he had expected it to be far more exciting. Instead, in utter exhaustion and in a mood to brook no argument, he stared coldly at the Spell and jerked a metaphorical thumb over his shoulder. You. Out. It looked for a moment as though the Spell was going to argue, but it wisely thought better of it. There was a tingling sensation, a blue flash behind his eyes, and a sudden feeling of emptiness. When he looked down at the page it was full of words. They were runes again. He was glad about that, the reptilian pictures were not only unspeakable but probably unpronounceable too, and reminded him of things he would have great difficulty in forgetting. He looked blankly at the book while Twoflower bustled around unheeded and Cohen tried in vain to lever the rings off the stone wizards. He had to do something, he reminded himself. What was it, now? He opened the book at the first page and began to read, his lips moving and his forefinger tracing the outline of each letter. As he mumbled each word it appeared soundlessly in the air beside him, in bright colours that streamed away in the night wind. He turned over the page. Other people were coming up the steps now – star people, citizens, even some of the Patrician's personal guard. A couple of star people made a half-hearted attempt to approach Rincewind, who was surrounded now by a rainbow swirl of letters and took absolutely no notice of them, but Cohen drew his sword and looked nonchalantly at them and they thought better of it. Silence spread out from Rincewind's bent form like ripples in a puddle. It cascaded down the tower and spread out through the milling crowds below, flowed over the walls, gushed darkly through the city, and engulfed the lands beyond. The bulk of the star loomed silently over the Disc. In the sky around it the new moons turned slowly and noiselessly. The only sound was Rincewind's hoarse whispering as he turned page after page. 'Isn't this exciting!' said Twoflower. Cohen, who was rolling a cigarette from the tarry remnants of its ancestors, looked at him blankly, paper halfway to his lips. 'Isn't what exciting?' he said. 'All this magic!' 'It's only lights,' said Cohen critically. 'He hasn't even produced doves out of his sleeves.' 'Yes, but can't you sense the occult potentiality?' said Twoflower. Cohen produced a big yellow match from somewhere in his tobacco bag, looked at Wert for a moment, and with great deliberation struck the match on his fossilised nose. 'Look,' he said to Twoflower, as kindly as he could manage. 'What do you expect? I've been around a long time, I've seen the whole magical thing, and I can tell you that if you go around with your jaw dropping all the time people hit it. Anyway, wizard's die just like anyone else when you stick a —' There was a loud snap as Rincewind shut the book. He stood up, and looked around. What happened next was this: Nothing. It took a little while for people to realise it. Everyone had ducked instinctively, waiting for the explosion of white light or scintillating fireball or, in the case of Cohen, who had fairly low expectations, a few white pigeons, possibly a slightly crumpled rabbit. It wasn't even an interesting nothing. Sometimes things can fail to happen in quite impressive ways, but as far as non-events went this one just couldn't compete. 'Is that it?' said Cohen. There was a general muttering from the crowd, and several of the star people were looking angrily at Rincewind. The wizard stared Wearily at Cohen. 'I suppose so,' he said. 'But nothing's happened.' Rincewind looked blankly at the Octavo. 'Maybe it has a subtle effect?' he said hopefully. 'After all, we don't know exactly what is supposed to happen.' 'We knew it!' shouted one of the star people. 'Magic doesn't work! It's all illusion!' A stone looped over the roof and hit Rincewind on the shoulder. 'Yeah,' said another star person. 'Let's get him!' 'Let's throw him off the tower!' 'Yeah, let's get him and throw him off the tower!' The crowd surged forward. Twoflower held up his hands. 'I'm sure there's just been a slight mistake—' he began, before his legs were kicked from underneath him. 'Oh bugger,' said Cohen, dropping his dogend and grinding it under a sandalled foot. He drew his sword and looked around for the Luggage. It hadn't rushed to Twoflower's aid. It was standing in front of Rincewind, who was clutching the Octavo to his chest like a hot-water bottle and looking frantic. A star man lunged at him. The Luggage raised its lid threateningly. 'I know why it hasn't worked,' said a voice from the back of the crowd. It was Bethan. 'Oh yeah?' said the nearest citizen. 'And why should we listen to you?' A mere fraction of a second later Cohen's sword was pressed against his neck. 'On the other hand,' said the man evenly, 'perhaps we should pay attention to what this young lady has got to say.' As Cohen swung around slowly with his sword at the ready Bethan stepped forward and pointed to the swirling shapes of the spells, which still hung in the air around Rincewind. 'That one can't be right,' she said, indicating a smudge of dirty brown amidst the pulsing, brightly coloured flares. You must have mispronounced a word. Let's have a look.' Rincewind passed her the Octavo without a word. She opened it and peered the pages. 'What funny writing,' she said. 'It keeps changing. What's that crocodile thing doing to the octopus?' Rincewind looked over her shoulder and, without thinking, told her. She was silent for a moment. 'Oh,' she said levelly. 'I didn't know crocodiles could do that.' 'It's just ancient picture writing,' said Rincewind hurriedly. 'It'll change if you wait. The Spells can appear in every known language.' 'Can you remember what you said when the wrong colour appeared?' Rincewind ran a finger down the page. 'There, I think. Where the two-headed lizard is doing – whatever it's doing.' Twoflower appeared at her other shoulder. The Spell flowed into another script. 'I can't even pronounce it,' said Bethan. 'Squiggle, squiggle, dot, dash.' 'That's Cupumuguk snow runes,' said Rincewind. 'I think it should be pronounced “zph”.' 'It didn't work, though. How about “sph”?' They looked at the word. It remained resolutely off-colour. 'Or “sff”?' said Bethan. 'It might be “tsff”,' said Rincewind doubtfully. If anything the colour became a dirtier shade of brown.