It reached the parapet, bounced upwards and shot over the edge.

But, instead of falling, it steadied itself in the air, spun in its own length and sped back again trailing octarine sparks and making a noise like a buzzsaw.

Rincewind pushed the stunned boy behind him, threw away the ravaged sock and whipped his hat off, flailing wildly as the staff bored toward him. It caught him on the side of the head, delivering a shock that almost welded his teeth together and toppled him like a thin and ragged tree.

The staff turned again in mid-air, glowing red-hot now, and swept back for another and quite definitely final run.

Rincewind struggled up on his elbows and watched in horrified fascination as it swooped through the chilly air which, for some reason he didn't understand, seemed to be full of snowflakes.

And became tinged with purple, blotched with blue. Time slowed and ground to a halt like an underwound phonograph.

Rincewind looked up at the tall black figure that had appeared a few feet away.

It was, of course, Death.

He turned his glowing eyesockets toward Rincewind and said, in a voice like the collapse of undersea chasms, GOOD AFTERNOON.

He turned away as if he had completed all necessary business for the time being, stared at the horizon for a while, and started to tap one foot idly. It sounded like a bagful of maracas.

"Er," said Rincewind.

Death appeared to remember him. I'M SORRY? he said politely.

"I always wondered how it was going to be," said Rincewind.

Death took an hourgla.s.s out from the mysterious folds of his ebon robes and peered at it.

DID YOU? he said, vaguely.

"I suppose I can't complain," said Rincewind virtuously. "I've had a good life. Well, quite good." He hesitated. "Well, not all that good. I suppose most people would call it pretty awful." He considered it further. "I would," he added, half to himself. would," he added, half to himself.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?.

Rincewind was nonplussed. "Don't you make an appearance when a wizard is about to die?"

OF COURSE. AND I MUST SAY YOU PEOPLE ARE GIVING ME A BUSY DAY.

"How do you manage to be in so many places at the same time?"

GOOD ORGANIZATION.

Time returned. The staff, which had been hanging in the air a few feet away from Rincewind, started to scream forward again.

And there was a metallic thud as Coin caught it one-handedly in mid-flight.

The staff uttered a noise like a thousand fingernails dragging across gla.s.s. It thrashed wildly up and down, flailing at the arm that held it, and bloomed into evil green flame along its entire length.

So. At the last, you fail me.

Coin groaned but held on as the metal under his fingertips went red, then white.

He thrust the arm out in front of him, and the force streaming from the staff roared past him and drew sparks from his hair and whipped his robe up into weird and unpleasant shapes. He screamed and whirled the staff around and smashed it on the parapet, leaving a long bubbling line in the stone.

Then he threw it away. It clattered against the stones and rolled to a halt, wizards scattering out of its path.

Coin sagged to his knees, shaking.

"I don't like killing people," he said. "I'm sure it can't be right."

"Hold onto that thought," said Rincewind fervently.

"What happens to people after they're dead?" said Coin.

Rincewind glanced up at Death.

"I think this one's for you," he said.

HE CANNOT SEE OR HEAR ME, said Death, UNTIL HE WANTS TO UNTIL HE WANTS TO.

There was a little clinking noise. The staff was rolling back toward Coin, who looked down at it in horror.

Pick me up.

"You don't have to," said Rincewind again.

You cannot resist me. You cannot defeat yourself, said the staff.

Coin reached out very slowly, and picked it up.

Rincewind glanced at his sock. It was a stub of burnt wool, its brief career as a weapon of war having sent it beyond the help of any darning needle.

Now kill him.

Rincewind held his breath. The watching wizards held their breath. Even Death, who had nothing to hold but his scythe, held it tensely.

"No," said Coin.

You know what happens to boys who are bad.

Rincewind saw the sourcerer's face go pale.

The staff's voice changed. Now it wheedled.

Without me, who would there be to tell you what to do?

"That is true," said Coin slowly.

See what you have achieved.

Coin stared slowly around at the frightened faces.

"I am seeing," he said.

I taught you everything I know.

"I am thinking," said Coin, "that you do not know enough."

Ingrate! Who gave you your destiny?

"You did," said the boy. He raised his head.

"I realize that I was wrong," he added, quietly.

Good- "I did not throw you far enough!"

Coin got to his feet in one movement and swung the staff over his head. He stood still as a statue, his hand lost in a ball of light that was the color of molten copper. It turned green, ascended through shades of blue, hovered in the violet and then seared into pure octarine.

Rincewind shaded his eyes against the glare and saw Coin's hand, still whole, still gripping tight, with beads of molten metal glittering between his fingers.

He slithered away, and b.u.mped into Hakardly. The old wizard was standing like a statue, with his mouth open.

"What'll happen?" said Rincewind.

"He'll never beat it," said Hakardly hoa.r.s.ely. "It's his. It's as strong as him. He's got the power, but it it knows how to channel it." knows how to channel it."

"You mean they'll cancel each other out?"

"Hopefully."

The battle was hidden in its own infernal glow. Then the floor began to tremble.

"They're drawing on everything magical," said Hakardly. "We'd better leave the tower."

"Why?"

"I imagine it will vanish soon enough."

And, indeed, the white flagstones around the glow looked as though they were unravelling and disappearing into it.

Rincewind hesitated.

"Aren't we going to help him?" he said.

Hakardly stared at him, and then at the iridescent tableau. His mouth opened and shut once or twice.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Yes, but just a bit of help on his side, you've seen what that thing thing is like-" is like-"

"I'm sorry."

"He helped you you." Rincewind turned on the other wizards, who were scurrying away. "All of you. He gave you what you wanted, didn't he?"

"We may never forgive him," said Hakardly.

Rincewind groaned.

"What will be left when it's all over?" he said. "What will be left?"

Hakardly looked down.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

The octarine light had grown brighter and was beginning to turn black around the edge. It wasn't the black that is merely the opposite of light, though; it was the grainy, shifting blackness that glows beyond the glare and has no business in any decent reality. And it buzzed.

Rincewind did a little dance of uncertainty as his feet, legs, instincts and incredibly well-developed sense of self-preservation overloaded his nervous system to the point where, just as it was on the point of fusing, his conscience finally got its way.

He leapt into the fire and reached the staff.

The wizards fled. Several of them levitated down from the tower.

They were a lot more perspicacious than those that used the stairs because, about thirty seconds later, the tower vanished.

The snow continued to fall around a column of blackness, which buzzed.

And the surviving wizards who dared to look back saw, tumbling slowly down the sky, a small object trailing flames behind it. It crashed into the cobbles, where it smouldered for a bit before the thickening snow put it out.

Pretty soon it became just a small mound.

A little while later a squat figure swung itself across the courtyard on its knuckles, scrabbled in the snow, and hauled the thing out.

It was, or rather it had been, a hat. Life had not been kind to it. A large part of the wide brim had been burned off, the point was entirely gone, and the tarnished silver letters were almost unreadable. Some of them had been torn off in any case. Those that were left spelled out: WIZD.

The Librarian turned around slowly. He was entirely alone, except for the towering column of burning blackness and the steadily falling flakes.

The ravaged campus was empty. There were a few other pointy hats that had been trampled by terrified feet, and no other sign that people had been there.

All the wizards were wazards.

"War?"

"Wazzat?"

"Wasn't there," Pestilence groped for his gla.s.s, "something?"