The Color of Magic

The Wyrmberg rises half a mile above the valley floor, an upside-down mountain with a narrow base barely 20 yards across and a plateau at the top half a mile wide. In the sides of the mountain, a few yards under the lip of the plateau, there are a number of cave mouths with a curiously regular look. Rincewind observes gloomily that they are in a strong magical field. It is the site of some old mage war where the fallout from a powerful spell is slowly decaying and distorting reality. As they are debating whether to depart at high speed, they hear a clap of wings, and something they can’t see swoops overhead and snatches the pig carcass off the spit over their fire.

At the Wyrmberg, Lady Liessa Wyrmbidder and her deceased father watch in a scrying glass as Rincewind and company accelerate hubward, followed by a priceless box of sapient pear wood. Liessa and her two brothers are all in contention for their father’s throne. Liessa considers it hers by right, but traditionally, a woman can’t rule. She is in the market for a husband: “Someone who, for preference, was a big strapping lad but short on brains.