“Yes, well—”
“So if you’ll just pull me out we can be off.”
Rincewind squinted up at the sword. A rescue attempt had hitherto been so far at the back of his mind that, if some advanced speculations on the nature and shape of the many-dimensioned multiplexity of the universe were correct, it was right at the front; but a magic sword was a valuable item…
And it would be a long trek back home, wherever that was…
He scrambled up the tree and inched along the branch. Kring was buried very firmly in the wood. He gripped the pommel and heaved until lights flashed in front of his eyes.
“Try again,” said the sword encouragingly.
Rincewind groaned and gritted his teeth.
“Could be worse,” said Kring. “This could have been an anvil.”
“Yaargh,” hissed the wizard, fearing for the future of his groin.
“I have had a multidimensional existence,” said the sword.
“Ungh?”
“I have had many names, you know.”
“Amazing,” said Rincewind. He swayed backward as the blade slid free. It felt strangely light.
Back on the ground again he decided to break the news.
“I really don’t think rescue is a good idea,” he said. “I think we’d better head back to a city, you know. To raise a search party.”
“The dragons headed hubward,” said Kring. “However, I suggest we start with the one in the trees over there.”
“Sorry, but—”
“You can’t leave them to their fate!”
Rincewind looked surprised. “I can’t?” he said.
“No. You can’t. Look, I’ll be frank. I’ve worked with better material than you, but it’s either that or—have you ever spent a million years in a coal measure?”
“Look, I—”
“So if you don’t stop arguing I’ll chop your head off.”
Rincewind saw his own arm snap up until the shimmering blade was humming a mere inch from his throat. He tried to force his fingers to let go. They wouldn’t.
“I don’t know how to be a hero!” he shouted.
“I propose to teach you.”
Bronze Psepha rumbled deep in his throat.
K!sdra the dragonrider leaned forward and squinted across the clearing.
“I see him,” he said. He swung himself down easily from branch to branch and landed lightly on the tussocky grass, drawing his sword.
He took a long look at the approaching man, who was obviously not keen on leaving the shelter of the trees. He was armed, but the dragonrider observed with some interest the strange way in which the man held the sword in front of him at arm’s length, as though embarrassed to be seen in its company.
K!sdra hefted his own sword and grinned expansively as the wizard shuffled toward him. Then he leapt.
Later, he remembered only two things about the fight. He recalled the uncanny way in which the wizard’s sword curved up and caught his own blade with a shock that jerked it out of his grip. The other thing—and it was this, he averred, that led to his downfall—was that the wizard was covering his eyes with one hand.
K!sdra jumped back to avoid another thrust and fell full length on the turf. With a snarl Psepha unfolded his great wings and launched himself from his tree.
A moment later the wizard was standing over him, shouting, “Tell it that if it singes me I’ll let the sword go! I will! I’ll let it go! So tell it!” The tip of the black sword was hovering over K!sdra’s throat. What was odd was that the wizard was obviously struggling with it, and it appeared to be singing to itself.
“Psepha!” K!sdra shouted.
The dragon roared in defiance, but pulled out of the dive that would have removed Rincewind’s head, and flapped ponderously back to the tree.
“Talk!” screamed Rincewind.
K!sdra squinted at him up the length of the sword.
“What would you like me to say?” he asked.
“What?”
“I said what would you like me to say?
“Where are my friends? The barbarian and the little man is what I mean!”
“I expect they have been taken back to the Wyrmberg.”
Rincewind tugged desperately against the surge of the sword, trying to shut his mind to Kring’s bloodthirsty humming.
“What’s a Wyrmberg?” he said.
“The Wyrmberg. There is only one. It is Dragonhome.”
“And I suppose you were waiting to take me there, eh?”
K!sdra yelped involuntarily as the tip of the sword pricked a bead of blood from his Adam’s apple.
“Don’t want people to know you’ve got dragons here, eh?” snarled Rincewind. The dragonrider forgot himself enough to nod, and came within a quarter-inch of cutting his own throat.
Rincewind looked around desperately, and realized that this was something he was really going to have to go through with.
“Right then,” he said as diffidently as he could manage. “You’d better take me to this Wyrmberg of yours, hadn’t you?”