The Colour of Magic

I'll take them mainly from the beginning of the stories to avoid spoilers.

Also, these are not necessarily my absolute favourite scenes or lines - see above. They are meant as teasers, only longer than usual.

The "titles" are by me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first appearance of... Great A'Tuin. And everything else Discworld.

"In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . . See . . . Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination. In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks only of the Weight. Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven. Astropsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about. The Great Turtle was a mere hypothesis until the day the small and secretive kingdom of Krull, whose rim-most mountains project out over the Rimfall, built a gantry and pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous crag and lowered several observers over the Edge in a quartz-windowed brass vessel to peer through the mist veils. The early astrozoologists, hauled back from their long dangle by enormous teams of slaves, were able to bring back much information about the shape and nature of A'Tuin and the elephants but this did not resolve fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of the universe. For example, what was Atuin's actual sex?"

Ankh Morpork burns

"Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards' Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth colour, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the vats and oil stores all along Merchants Street it progressed in a series of blazing fountains and explosions; in the streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God. By now the whole of downtown Morpork was alight, and the richer and worthier citizens of Ankh on the far bank were bravely responding to the situation by feverishly demolishing the bridges. But already the ships in the Morpork docks - laden with grain, cotton and timber, and coated with tar - were blazing merrily and, their moorings burnt to ashes, were breasting the river Ankh on the ebb tide, igniting riverside palaces and bowers as they drifted like drowning fireflies towards the sea. In any case, sparks were riding the breeze and touching down far across the river in hidden gardens and remote rickyards. The smoke from the merry burning rose miles high, in a wind-sculpted black column that could be seen across the whole of the discworld."

Rincewind

"The Weasel stepped up to the horse and peered at the dishevelled figure.

"Why, it's Rincewind the wizard, isn't it?" he said in tones of delight, meanwhile filing the wizard's description of him in his memory for leisurely vengeance. "I thought I recognized the voice."

Bravd spat and sheathed his sword. It was seldom worth tangling with wizards, they so rarely had any treasure worth speaking of.

"He talks pretty big for a gutter wizard," he muttered.

"You don't understand at all," said the wizard wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you." "

Twoflower

"The visitor went on,

"My name is Twoflower," and extended his hand.

Instinctively, the other three looked down to see if there was a coin in it.

"Pleased to meet you," said Rincewind. "I'm Rincewind. Look, I wasn't joking. This is a tough place.""

Trouble

"It was while he was thus engaged in the Plaza of Broken Moons that disaster struck. Twoflower had posed alongside a bewildered charm-seller, his crowd of new-found admirers watching him with interest in case he did something humorously lunatic. Rincewind got down on one knee, the better to arrange the picture, and pressed the enchanted lever. The box said,

"It's no good. I've run out of pink."

A hitherto unnoticed door opened in front of his eyes. A small, green and hideously warty humanoid figure leaned out, pointed at a colour-encrusted palette in one clawed hand, and screamed at him.

"No pink, see?" screeched the homunculus."No good you going on pressing the lever when there's no pink, is there? If you wanted pink you shouldn't of took all those pictures of young ladies, should you? It's monochrome from now on, friend. Alright?"

"Alright. Yeah, sure," said Rincewind.

In one dim corner of the little box he thought he could see an easel, and a tiny unmade bed. He hoped he couldn't.

"So long as that's understood," said the imp, and shut the door. Rincewind thought he could hear the muffled sound of grumbling and the scrape of a stool being dragged across the floor.

"Twoflower-" he began, and looked up. Twoflower had vanished. As Rincewind stared at the crowd, with sensations of prickly horror traveling up his spine, there came a gentle prod in the small of his back.

"Turn without haste," said a voice like black silk. "Or kiss your kidneys goodbye.""

Death

"It has been remarked before that those who are sensitive to radiations in the far octarine - the eighth colour, the pigment of Imagination- can see things that others cannot. Thus it was that Rincewind, hurrying through the crowded, flare-lit evening bazaars of Morpork with the luggage trundling behind him, jostled a tall dark figure, turned to deliver a few suitable curses, and beheld Death. It had to be Death. No-one else went around with empty eye sockets and, of course, the scythe over one shoulder was another clue. As Rincewind stared in horror a courting couple, laughing at some private joke, walked straight through the apparition without appearing to notice it. Death, insofar as it was possible in a face with no movable features, looked surprised.

RINCEWIND? Death said, in tones as deep and heavy as the slamming of leaden doors, far underground.

"Um," said Rincewind, trying to back away from that eyeless stare.

BUT WHY ARE YOU HERE? ( Boom, boom went crypt lids, in the worm-haunted fastnesses under old mountains . . .)

"Um, why not?" said Rincewind. "Anyway, I'm sure you've got lots to do, so if you'll just-"

I WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU JOSTLED ME, RINCEWIND, FOR I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THEE THIS VERY NIGHT.

"Oh no, not-"

OF COURSE, WHAT'S SO BLOODY VEXING ABOUT THE WHOLE BUSINESS IS THAT I WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN PSUDOPOLIS.

"But that's five hundred miles away!"

YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME, THE WHOLE SYSTEM'S GOT SCREWED UP AGAIN, I CAN SEE THAT. LOOK THERE'S NO CHANCE OF YOU-?

Rincewind backed away, hands spread protectively in front of him. The dried fish salesman on anearby stall watched this madman with interest.

"Not a chance!"

I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE.

"No!"

IT WON'T HURT A BIT.

"No!"

Rincewind turned and ran. Death watched him go, and shrugged bitterly.

SOD YOU, THEN, Death said.

He turned, and noticed the fish salesman. With a snarl Death reached out a bony finger and stopped the man's heart, but He didn't take much pride in it. Then Death remembered what was due to happen later that night. It would not be true to say that Death smiled, because in any case His features were perforce frozen in a calcareous grin. But He hummed a little tune, cheery as a plague pit, and pausing only to extract the life from a passing mayfly, and one-ninth of the lives from a cat cowering under the fish stall (all cats can see into the octarine) - Death turned on His heel and set off towards the Broken Drum. "

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