The violet light was intense here, giving everything new and unpleasant colors. This wasn’t a passage, it was a wide room with walls to a number that Rincewind didn’t dare to contemplate, and ei—and 7a passages radiating from it.
Rincewind saw, a little way off, a low altar with the same number of sides as four times two. It didn’t occupy the center of the room, however. The center was occupied by a huge stone slab with twice as many sides as a square. It looked massive. In the strange light it appeared to be slightly tilted, with one edge standing proud of the slabs around it.
Twoflower was standing on it.
“Hey. Rincewind! Look what’s here!”
The Luggage came ambling down one of the other passages that radiated from the room.
“That’s great,” said Rincewind. “Fine. It can lead us out of here. Now.”
Twoflower was already rummaging in the chest.
“Yes,” he said. “After I’ve taken a few pictures. Just let me fit the attachment—”
“I said now—”
Rincewind stopped. Hrun the Barbarian was standing in the passage mouth directly opposite him, a great black sword held in one ham-sized fist.
“You?” said Hrun uncertainly.
“Ahaha. Yes,” said Rincewind. “Hrun, isn’t it? Long time no see. What brings you here?”
Hrun pointed to the Luggage.
“That,” he said. This much conversation seemed to exhaust Hrun. Then he added, in a tone that combined statement, claim, threat and ultimatum: “Mine.”
“It belongs to Twoflower here,” said Rincewind. “Here’s a tip. Don’t touch it.”
It dawned on him that this was precisely the wrong thing to say, but Hrun had already pushed Twoflower away and was reaching for the Luggage…
…which sprouted legs, backed away, and raised its lid threateningly. In the uncertain light Rincewind thought he could see rows of enormous teeth, white as bleached beech-wood.
“Hrun,” he said quickly, “there’s something I ought to tell you.”
Hrun turned a puzzled face to him.
“What?” he said.
“It’s about numbers. Look, you know if you add seven and one, or three and five, or take two from ten, you get a number. While you’re here don’t say it, and we might all stand a chance of getting out of here alive. Or merely just dead.”
“Who is he?” asked Twoflower. He was holding a cage in his hands, dredged from the bottommost depths of the Luggage. It appeared to be full of sulking pink lizards.
“I am Hrun,” said Hrun proudly. Then he looked at Rincewind.
“What?” he said.
“Just don’t say it, okay?” said Rincewind.
He looked at the sword in Hrun’s hand. It was black, the sort of black that is less a color than a graveyard of colors, and there was a highly ornate runic inscription up the blade. More noticeable still was the faint octarine glow that surrounded it. The sword must have noticed him, too, because it suddenly spoke in a voice like a claw being scraped across glass.
“Strange,” it said. “Why can’t he say eight?”
EIGHT, Hate, ate said the echoes. There was the faintest of grinding noises, deep under the earth.
And the echoes, although they became softer, refused to die away. They bounced from wall to wall, crossing and recrossing, and the violet light flickered in time with the sound.
“You did it!” screamed Rincewind. “I said you shouldn’t say eight!”
He stopped, appalled at himself. But the word was out now, and joined its colleagues in the general susurration.
Rincewind turned to run, but the air suddenly seemed to be thicker than treacle. A charge of magic bigger than he had ever seen was building up; when he moved, in painful slow motion, his limbs left trails of golden sparks that traced their shape in the air.
Behind him there was a rumble as the great octagonal slab rose into the air, hung for a moment on one edge, and crashed down on the floor.
Something thin and black snaked out of the pit and wrapped itself around his ankle. He screamed as he landed heavily on the vibrating flagstones. The tentacle started to pull him across the floor.
Then Twoflower was in front of him, reaching out for his hands. He grasped the little man’s arms desperately and they lay looking into each other’s faces. Rincewind slid on, even so.
“What’s holding you?” he gasped.
“N-nothing!” said Twoflower. “What’s happening?”
“I’m being dragged into this pit, what do you think?”
“Oh, Rincewind, I’m sorry—”
“You’re sorry—”
There was a noise like a singing saw and the pressure on Rincewind’s legs abruptly ceased. He turned his head and saw Hrun crouched by the pit, his sword a blur as it hacked at the tentacles racing out toward him.
Twoflower helped the wizard to his feet and they crouched by the altar stone, watching the manic figure as it battled the questing arms.
“It won’t work,” said Rincewind. “The Sender can materialize tentacles. What are you doing?”
Twoflower was feverishly attaching the cage of subdued lizards to the picture box, which he had mounted on a tripod.