The octarines around its crown blazed in all eight colours of the spectrum, creating the kind of effects in the foggy alley that it would take a very clever special effects director and a whole battery of star filters to achieve by any non-magical means. As she raised it high in the air it created its own nebula of colours that very few people ever see in legal circumstances.
Rincewind sank gently to his knees.
She looked down at him, puzzled.
'Legs given out?'
'It's — it's the hat. The Archchancellor's hat,' said Rincewind, hoarsely. His eyes narrowed. 'You've stolen it!' he shouted, struggling back to his feet and grabbing for the sparkling brim.
'It's just a hat.'
'Give it to me this minute! Women musn't touch it! It belongs to wizards!'
'Why are you getting so worked up?' she said.
Rincewind opened his mouth. Rincewind closed his mouth.
He wanted to say: It's the Archchancellor's hat, don't you understand? It's worn by the head of all wizards, well, on the head of the head of all wizards, no, metaphorically it's worn by all wizards, potentially, anyway, and it's what every wizard aspires to, it's the symbol of organised magic, it's the pointy tip of the profession, it's a symbol, it's what it means to all wizards ...
And so on. Rincewind had been told about the hat on his first day at University, and it had sunk into his impressionable mind like a lead weight into a jelly. He wasn't sure of much in the world, but he was certain that the Archchancellor's hat was important. Maybe even wizards need a little magic in their lives.
Rincewind, said the hat.
He stared at the girl. 'It spoke to me!'
'Like a voice in your head?'
'Yes!'
'It did that to me, too.'
'But it knew my name!'
Of course we do, stupid fellow. We are supposed to be a magic hat after all.
The hat's voice wasn't only clothy. It also had a strange choral effect, as if an awful lot of voices were talking at the same time, in almost perfect unison.
Rincewind pulled himself together.
'O great and wonderful hat,' he said pompously, 'strike down this impudent girl who has had the audacity, nay, the-’
Oh, do shut up. She stole us because we ordered her to. It was a near thing, too.
'But she's a-’ Rincewind hesitated. 'She's of the female persuasion...' he muttered.
So was your mother.
'Yes, well, but she ran away before I was born,' Rincewind mumbled.
Of all the disreputable taverns in all the city you could have walked into, you walked into his, complained the hat.
'He was the only wizard I could find,' said the girl, 'He looked the part. He had 'blizzard' written on his hat and everything.'
Don't believe everything you read. Too late now, anyway. We haven't got much time.
'Hold on, hold on,' said Rincewind urgently, 'What's going on? You wanted her to steal you? Why haven't we got much time?' He pointed an accusing finger at the hat. 'Anyway, you can't go around letting yourself be stolen, you're supposed to be on — on the Archchancellor's head! The ceremony was tonight, I should have been there-’
Something terrible is happening at the University. It is vital that we are not taken back, do you understand? You must take us to Klatch, where there is someone fit to wear me.
'Why?' There was something very strange about the voice, Rincewind decided. It sounded impossible to disobey, as though it was solid destiny. If it told him to walk over a cliff, he thought, he'd be halfway down before it could occur to him to disobey.
The death of all wizardry is at hand.
Rincewind looked around guiltily.
'Why?' he said.
The world is going to end.
'What, again?'
I mean it, said the hat sulkily. The triumph of the Ice Giants, the Apocralypse, the Teatime of the Gods, the whole thing.
'Can we stop it?'
The future is uncertain on that point.
Rincewind's expression of determined terror faded slowly.
'Is this a riddle?' he said.
Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you're told and didn't try to understand things, said the hat. Young woman, you will put us back in our box. A great many people will shortly be looking for us.
'Hey, hold on,' said Rincewind. 'I've seen you around here for years and you never talked before.'
I didn't have anything that needed to be said.
Rincewind nodded. That seemed reasonable.
'Look, just shove it in its box, and let's get going,' said the girl.
A bit more respect if you please, young lady,' said Rincewind haughtily. 'That is the symbol of ancient wizardry you happen to be addressing.'
'You carry it, then,' she said.
'Hey, look,' said Rincewind, scrambling along after her as she swept down the alleys, crossed a narrow street and entered another alley between a couple of houses that leaned together so drunkenly that their upper storeys actually touched. She stopped.
'Well?' she snapped.
'You're the mystery thief, aren't you?' he said, 'Everyone's been talking about you, how you've taken things even from locked rooms and everything. You're different than I imagined...'
'Oh?' she said coldly. 'How?'
'Well, you're ... shorter.'
'Oh, come on.'
The street cressets, not particularly common in this part of the city in any case, gave out altogether here. There was nothing but watchful darkness ahead.
'I said come on,' she repeated. 'What are you afraid of?'
Rincewind took a deep breath. 'Murderers, muggers, thieves, assassins, pickpockets, cutpurses, reevers, snigsmen, rapists and robbers,' he said. 'That's the Shades you're going into!'[8]
'Yes, but people won't come looking for us in here,' she said.
'Oh, they'll come in all right, they just won't come out,' said Rincewind. 'Nor will we. I mean, a beautiful young woman like you ... it doesn't bear thinking about ... I mean, some of the people in there ...'
'But I'll have you to protect me,' she said.
Rincewind thought he heard the sound of marching feet several streets away.
'You know,' he sighed, 'I knew you’d say that.'
Down these mean streets a man must walk, he thought. And along some of them he will break into a run.
It is so black in the Shades on this foggy spring night that it would be too dark to read about Rincewind's progress through the eerie streets, so the descriptive passage will lift up above the level of the ornate rooftops, the forest of twisty chimneys, and admire the few twinkling stars that manage to pierce the swirling billows. It will try to ignore the sounds drifting up from below the patter of feet, the rushes, the gristly noises, the groans, the muffled screams. It could be that some wild animal is pacing through the Shades after two weeks on a starvation diet.
Somewhere near the centre of the Shades — the district has never been adequately mapped — is a small courtyard. Here at least there are torches on the walls, but the light they throw is the light of the Shades themselves: mean, reddened, dark at the core.
Rincewind staggered into the yard and hung on to the wall for support. The girl stepped into the ruddy light behind him, humming to herself.
'Are you all right?' she said.
'Nurrgh,' said Rincewind.
'Sorry?'
'Those men,' he bubbled, 'I mean, the way you kicked his ... when you grabbed them by the ... when you stabbed that one right in ... who are you?'
'My name is Conina.'
Rincewind looked at her blankly for some time.
'Sorry,' he said, 'doesn't ring a bell.'
'I haven't been here long,' she said.
'Yes, I didn't think you were from around these parts,' he said. 'I would have heard.'
'I've taken lodgings here. Shall we go in?'
Rincewind glanced up at the dingy pole just visible in the smoky light of the spitting torches. It indicated that the hostelry behind the small dark door was the Troll's Head.
It might be thought that the Mended Drum, scene of unseemly scuffles only an hour ago, was a seedy disreputable tavern. In fact it was a reputable disreputable tavern. Its customers had a certain rough-hewn respectability — they might murder each other in an easygoing way, as between equals, but they didn't do it vindictively. A child could go in for a glass of lemonade and be certain of getting nothing worse than a clip round the ear when his mother heard his expanded vocabulary. On quiet nights, and when he was certain the Librarian wasn't going to come in, the landlord was even known to put bowls of peanuts on the bar.
The Troll's Head was a cesspit of a different odour. Its customers, if they reformed, tidied themselves up and generally improved their image out of all recognition might, just might, aspire to be considered the utter dregs of humanity. And in the Shades, a dreg is a dreg.
By the way, the thing on the pole isn't a sign. When they decided to call the place the Troll's Head, they didn't mess about.
Feeling sick, and clutching the grumbling hatbox to his chest, Rincewind stepped inside.
Silence. It wrapped itself around them, nearly as thickly as the smoke of a dozen substances guaranteed to turn any normal brain to cheese. Suspicious eyes peered through the smog.
A couple of dice clattered to a halt on a tabletop. They sounded very loud, and probably weren't showing Rincewind's lucky number.
He was aware of the stares of several score of customers as he followed the demure and surprisingly small figure of Conina into the room. He looked sideways into the leering faces of men who would kill him sooner than think, and in fact would find it a great deal easier.
Where a respectable tavern would have had a bar there was just a row of squat black bottles and a couple of big barrels on trestles against the wall.
The silence tightened like a tourniquet. Any minute now, Rincewind thought.
A big fat man wearing nothing but a fur vest and a leather loincloth pushed back his stool and lurched to his feet and winked evilly at his colleagues. When his mouth opened, it was like a hole with a hem.
'Looking for a man, little lady?' he said.
She looked up at him.
'Please keep away'
A snake of laughter writhed around the room. Conina's mouth snapped shut like a letterbox.
‘Ah,’ the big man gurgled, 'that's right, I likes a girl with spirit-‘
Conina's hand moved. It was a pale blur, stopping here and here: after a few seconds of disbelief the man gave a little grunt and folded up, very slowly.
Rincewind shrank back as every other man in the room leaned forward. His instinct was to run, and he knew it was an instinct that would get him instantly killed. It was the Shades out there. Whatever was going to happen to him next was going to happen to him here. It was not a reassuring thought.
A hand closed around his mouth. Two more grabbed the hatbox from his arms.
Conina spun past him, lifting her skirt to place a neat foot on a target beside Rincewind's waist. Someone whimpered in his ear and collapsed. As the girl pirouetted gracefully around she picked up two bottles, knocked out their bottoms on the shelf and landed with their jagged ends held out in front of her. Morpork daggers, they were called in the patois of the streets.
In the face of them, the Troll's Head's clientele lost interest.
'Someone got the hat,' Rincewind muttered through dry lips, 'They slipped out of the back way.'
She glared at him and made for the door. The Head's crowd of customers parted automatically, like sharks recognising another shark, and Rincewind darted anxiously after her before they came to any conclusion about him.
They ran out into another alley and pounded down it. Rincewind tried to keep up with the girl; people following her tended to tread on sharp things, and he wasn't sure she'd remember he was on her side, whatever side that was.
A thin, half-hearted drizzle was falling. And at the end of the alley was a faint blue glow.
'Wait!'
The terror in Rincewind's voice was enough to slow her down.
'What's wrong?'
'Why's he stopped?'
'I'll ask him,' said Conina, firmly.
'Why's he covered in snow?'
She stopped and turned around, arms thrust into her sides, one foot tapping impatiently on the damp cobbles.
'Rincewind, I've known you for an hour and I'm astonished you've lived even that long!'
'Yes, but I have, haven't I? I've got a sort of talent for it. Ask anyone. I'm an addict.'
'Addicted to what?'
'Life. I got hooked on it at an early age and I don't want to give it up and take it from me, this doesn't look right!'
Conina looked back at the figure surrounded by the glowing blue aura. It seemed to be looking at something in its hands.
Snow was settling on its shoulder like really bad dandruff. Terminal dandruff. Rincewind had an instinct for these things, and he had a deep suspicion that the man had gone where shampoo would be no help at all.
They sidled along a glistening wall.
'There's something very strange about him,' she conceded.
'You mean the way he's got his own private blizzard?'
'Doesn't seem to upset him. He's smiling.'
'A frozen grin, I'd call it.'
The man's icicle-hung hands had been taking the lid off the box, and the glow from the hat's octarines shone up into a pair of greedy eyes that were already heavily rimed with frost.
'Know him?' said Conina.
Rincewind shrugged. 'I've seen him around,' he said. 'He's called Larry the Fox or Fezzy the Stoat or something. Some sort of rodent, anyway. He just steals things. He's harmless.'
'He looks incredibly cold.' Conina shivered.
'I expect he's gone to a warmer place. Don't you think we should shut the box?'
It's perfectly safe now, said the hat's voice from inside the glow. And so perish all enemies of wizardry.
Rincewind wasn't about to trust what a hat said.
'We need something to shut the lid,' he muttered. 'A knife or something. You wouldn't have one, would you?'
'Look the other way,' Conina warned.
There was a rustle and another gust of perfume.
'You can look back now.'
Rincewind was handed a twelve-inch throwing knife. He took it gingerly. Little particles of metal glinted on its edge.
'Thanks.' He turned back. 'Not leaving you short, am I?'
'I have others.'
'I'll bet.'
Rincewind reached out gingerly with the knife. As it neared the leather box its blade went white and started to steam. He whimpered a little as the cold struck his hand — a burning, stabbing cold, a cold that crept up his arm and made a determined assault on his mind. He forced his numb fingers into action and, with great effort, nudged the edge of the lid with the tip of the blade.
The glow faded. The snow became sleet, then melted into drizzle.
Conina nudged him aside and pulled the box out of the frozen arms.
'I wish there was something we could do for him. It seems wrong just to leave him here.'
'He won't mind,' said Rincewind, with conviction.
'Yes, but we could at least lean him against the wall. Or something.'
Rincewind nodded, and grabbed the frozen thief by his icicle arm. The man slipped out of his grasp and hit the cobbles.
Where he shattered.
Conina looked at the pieces.
'Urg,' she said.
There was a disturbance further up the alley, coming from the back door of the Troll's Head. Rincewind felt the knife snatched from his hand and then go past his ear in a flat trajectory that ended in the doorpost twenty yards away. A head that had been sticking out withdrew hurriedly.
'We'd better go,' said Conina, hurrying along the alley. 'Is there somewhere we can hide? Your place?'
'I generally sleep at the University,' said Rincewind, hopping along behind her.
You must not return to the University, growled the hat from the depths of its box. Rincewind nodded distractedly. The idea certainly didn't seem attractive.
'Anyway, they don't allow women inside after dark,' he said.
'And before dark?'
'Not then, either.'
Conina sighed. 'That's silly. What have you wizards got against women, then?'
Rincewind's brow wrinkled. 'We're not supposed to put anything against women,' he said. 'That's the whole point.'
Sinister grey mists rolled through the docks of Morpork, dripping from the rigging, coiling around the drunken rooftops, lurking in alleys. The docks at night were thought by some to be even more dangerous than the Shades. Two muggers, a sneak thief and someone who had merely tapped Conina on the shoulder to ask her the time had already found this out.
'Do you mind if I ask you a question?' said Rincewind, stepping over the luckless pedestrian who lay coiled around his private pain.
Well?'
'I mean, I wouldn't like to cause offence.'
Well?'
'It's just that I can't help noticing-’
'Hmmm?'
'You have this certain way with strangers.' Rincewind ducked, but nothing happened.
What are you doing down there?' said Conina, testily.
,Sorry.,
'I know what you're thinking. I can't help it, I take after my father.'
Who was he, then? Cohen the Barbarian?' Rincewind grinned to show it was a joke. At least, his lips moved in a desperate crescent.
'No need to laugh about it, wizard.'
'What?'
'It's not my fault.'
Rincewind's lips moved soundlessly. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Have I got this right? Your father really is Cohen the Barbarian?'
'Yes.' The girl scowled at Rincewind. 'Everyone has to have a father,' she added. 'Even you, I imagine.'
She peered around a corner.
'All clear. Come on,' she said, and then when they were striding along the damp cobbles she continued: 'I expect your father was a wizard, probably.'
'I shouldn't think so,' said Rincewind. 'Wizardry isn't allowed to run in families.' He paused. He knew Cohen, he'd even been a guest at one of his weddings when he married a girl of Conina's age; you could say this about Cohen, he crammed every hour full of minutes. 'A lot of people would like to take after Cohen, I mean, he was the best fighter, the greatest thief, he-’
'A lot of men would,' Conina snapped. She leaned against a wall and glared at him.
'Listen,' she said, 'There's this long word, see, an old witch told me about it ...can't remember it ...you wizards know about long words.'
Rincewind thought about long words. 'Marmalade?' he volunteered.
She shook her head irritably. 'It means you take after your parents.'
Rincewind frowned. He wasn't too good on the subject of parents.
'Kleptomania? Recidivist?' he hazarded.
'Begins with an H.'
'Hedonism?' said Rincewind desperately.
'Herrydeterry,' said Conina. 'This witch explained it to me. My mother was a temple dancer for some mad god or other, and father rescued her, and — they stayed together for a while. They say I get my looks and figure from her.'
'And very good they are, too,' said Rincewind, with hopeless gallantry.
She blushed. 'Yes, well, but from him I got sinews you could moor a boat with, reflexes like a snake on a hot tin, a terrible urge to steal things and this dreadful sensation every time I meet someone that I should be throwing a knife through his eye at ninety feet. I can, too,' she added with a trace of pride.
'Gosh.'
'It tends to put men off.'
Well, it would,' said Rincewind weakly.
'I mean, when they find out, it's very hard to hang on to a boyfriend.'
'Except by the throat, I imagine,' said Rincewind.
'Not what you really need to build up a proper relationship.'
'No. I can see,' said Rincewind. 'Still, pretty good if you want to be a famous barbarian thief.'
But not,' said Conina, 'if you want to be a hairdresser.'
'Ah.'
They stared into the mist.
'Really a hairdresser?' said Rincewind.
Conina sighed.
'Not much call for a barbarian hairdresser, I expect,' said Rincewind. 'I mean, no-one wants a shampoo-and-beheading.'
'It's just that every time I see a manicure set I get this terrible urge to lay about me with a double-handed cuticle knife. I mean sword,' said Conina.
Rincewind sighed. 'I know how it is,' he said. 'I wanted to be a wizard.'
'But you are a wizard.'
'Ah. Well, of course, but-’
'Quiet!'
Rincewind found himself rammed against the wall, where a trickle of condensed mist inexplicably began to drip down his neck. A broad throwing knife had mysteriously appeared in Conina's hand, and she was crouched like a jungle animal or, even worse, a jungle human.
'What-’ Rincewind began.
'Shut up!' she hissed. 'Something's coming!'
She stood up in one fluid movement, spun on one leg and let the knife go.
There was a single, hollow, wooden thud.
Conina stood and stared. For once, the heroic blood that pounded through her veins, drowning out all chances of a lifetime in a pink pinny, was totally at a loss.
'I've just killed a wooden box,' she said.
Rincewind looked round the corner.
The Luggage stood in the dripping street, the knife still quivering in its lid, and stared at her. Then it changed its position slightly, its little legs moving in a complicated tango pattern, and stared at Rincewind. The Luggage didn't have any features at all, apart from a lock and a couple of hinges, but it could stare better than a rockful of iguanas. It could outstare a glass-eyed statue. When it came to a look of betrayed pathos, the Luggage could leave the average kicked spaniel moping back in its kennel. It had several arrowheads and broken swords sticking in it.
'What is it?' hissed Conina.
'It's just the Luggage,' said Rincewind wearily.
'Does it belong to you?'
'Not really. Sort of.'
'Is it dangerous?'
The Luggage shuffled round to stare at her again.
'There's two schools of thought about that,' said Rincewind. 'There's some people who say it's dangerous, and others who say it's very dangerous. What do you think?'
The Luggage raised its lid a fraction.
The Luggage was made from the wood of the sapient peartree, a plant so magical that it had nearly died out on the Disc and survived only in one or two places; it was a sort of rosebay willowherb, only instead of bomb sites it sprouted in areas that had seen vast expenditures of magic. Wizards' staves were traditionally made of it; so was the Luggage.
Among the Luggage's magical qualities was a fairly simple and direct one: it would follow its adopted owner anywhere. Not anywhere in any particular set of dimensions, or country, or universe, or lifetime. Anywhere. It was about as easy to shake off as a head cold and considerably more unpleasant.
The Luggage was also extremely protective of its owner. It would be hard to describe its attitude to the rest of creation, but one could start with the phrase 'bloody-minded malevolence' and work up from there.
Conina stared at that lid. It looked very much like a mouth.
'I think I'd vote for "terminally dangerous",' she said.
'It likes crisps,' volunteered Rincewind, and then added, 'Well, that's a bit strong. It eats crisps.'
'What about people?'
'Oh, and people. About fifteen so far; I think.'
'Were they good or bad?'
'Just dead, I think. It also does your laundry for you, you put your clothes in and they come out washed and ironed.'
'And covered in blood?'
'You know, that's the funny thing,' said Rincewind.
'The funny thing?' repeated Conina, her eyes not leaving the Luggage.
'Yes, because, you see, the inside isn't always the same, it's sort of multidimensional, and-’
'How does it feel about women?'
'Oh, it's not choosy. It ate a book of spells last year. Sulked for three days and then spat it out.'
'It's horrible,' said Conina, and backed away.
'Oh, yes,' said Rincewind, 'absolutely.'
'I mean the way it stares!'
'It's very good at it, isn't it?'
We must leave for Klatch, said a voice from the hatbox. One of these boats will be adequate. Commandeer it.
Rincewind looked at the dim, mist-wreathed shapes that loomed in the mist under a forest of rigging. Here and there a riding light made a little fuzzy ball of light in the gloom.
'Hard to disobey, isn't it?' said Conina.
'I'm trying,' said Rincewind. Sweat prickled on his forehead.
Go aboard now, said the hat. Rincewind's feet began to shuffle of their own accord.
'Why are you doing this to me?' he moaned.
Because I have no alternative. Believe me, if I could have found an eighth level mage I would have done so. I must not be worn!
'Why not? You are the Archchancellor's hat.'
And through me speak all the Archchancellors who ever lived. I am the University. I am the Lore. I am the symbol of magic under the control of men — and I will not be worn by a sourcerer! There must be no more sourcerers! The world is too worn out for sourcery!
Conina coughed.
'Did you understand any of that?' she said, cautiously.
'I understood some of it, but I didn't believe it,' said Rincewind. His feet remained firmly rooted to the cobbles.
They called me a figurehat! The voice was heavy with sarcasm. Fat wizards who betray everything the University ever stood for, and they called me a figurehat! Rincewind, I command you. And you, madam. Serve me well and I will grant you your deepest desire.
'How can you grant my deepest desire if the world's going to end?'
The hat appeared to think about it. Well, have you got a deepest desire that need only take a couple of minutes?
'Look, how can you do magic? You're just a-’ Rincewind's voice trailed off.
I AM magic. Proper magic. Besides, you don't get worn by some of the world's greatest wizards for two thousand years without learning a few things. Now. We must flee.
But with dignity of course.
Rincewind looked pathetically at Conina, who shrugged again.
'Don't ask me,' she said. 'This looks like an adventure. I'm doomed to have them, I'm afraid. That's genetics[9] for you.'
'But I'm no good at them! Believe me, I've been through dozens!' Rincewind wailed.
Ah. Experience, said the hat.
'No, really, I'm a terrible coward, I always run away.' Rincewind's chest heaved. 'Danger has stared me in the back of the head, oh, hundreds of times!'
I don't want you to go into danger.
'Good!'
I want you to stay OUT of danger.
Rincewind sagged. 'Why me?' he moaned.
For the good of the University. For the honour of wizardry. For the sake of the world. For your heart's desire. And I'll freeze you alive if you don't.
Rincewind breathed a sigh almost of relief. He wasn't good on bribes, or cajolery, or appeals to his better nature. But threats, now, threats were familiar. He knew where he was with threats.
The sun dawned on Small Gods' Day like a badly poached egg. The mists had closed in over Ankh-Morpork in streamers of silver and gold — damp, warm, silent. There was the distant grumbling of springtime thunder, out on the plains. It seemed warmer than it ought to be.
Wizards normally slept late. On this morning, however, many of them had got up early and were wandering the corridors aimlessly. They could feel the change in the air.
The University was filling up with magic.
Of course, it was usually full of magic anyway, but it was an old, comfortable magic, as exciting and dangerous as a bedroom slipper. But seeping through the ancient fabric was a new magic, saw-edged and vibrant, bright and cold as comet fire. It sleeted through the stones and crackled off sharp edges like static electricity on the nylon carpet of Creation. It buzzed and sizzled. It curled wizardly beards, poured in wisps of octarine smoke from fingers that had done nothing more mystical for three decades than a little light illusion. How can the effect be described with delicacy and taste? For most of the wizards, it was like being an elderly man who, suddenly faced with a beautiful young woman, finds to his horror and delight and astonishment that the flesh is suddenly as willing as the spirit.
And in the halls and corridors of the University the word was being whispered: Sourcery!
A few wizards surreptitiously tried spells that they hadn't been able to master for years, and watched in amazement as they unrolled perfectly. Sheepishly at first, and then with confidence, and then with shouts and whoops, they threw fireballs to one another or produced live doves out of their hats or made multi-coloured sequins fall out of the air.
Sourcery! One or two wizards, stately men who had hitherto done nothing more blameworthy that eat a live oyster, turned themselves invisible and chased the maids and bedders through the corridors.
Sourcery! Some of the bolder spirits had tried out ancient flying spells and were bobbing a little uncertainly among the rafters. Sourcery!
Only the Librarian didn't share in the manic breakfast. He watched the antics for some time, pursing his prehensile lips, and then knuckled stiffly off towards his Library. If anyone had bothered to notice, they'd have heard him bolting the door.
It was deathly quiet in the Library. The books were no longer frantic. They'd passed through their fear and out into the calm waters of abject terror, and they crouched on their shelves like so many mesmerised rabbits.
A long hairy arm reached up and grabbed Casplock's Compleet Lexicon of Majik with Precepts for the Wise before it could back away, soothed its terror with a longfingered hand, and opened it under 'S'. The Librarian smoothed the trembling page gently and ran a horny nail down the entries until he came to:
Sourcerer, n. (mythical). A proto-wizard, a doorway through which new majik may enterr the world, a wizard not limited by the physical capabilities of hys own bodie, not by Destinie, nor by Deathe. It is written that there once werre sourcerers in the youth of the world but not may there by nowe and blessed be, for sourcery is not for menne and the return of sourcery would mean the Ende of the Worlde ... If the Creator hadd meant menne to bee as goddes, he ould have given them wings. SEE ALSO: thee Apocralypse, the legende of thee Ice Giants, and thee Teatime of the Goddes.
The Librarian read the cross-references, turned back to the first entry, and stared at it through deep dark eyes for a long time. Then he put the book back carefully, crept under his desk, and pulled the blanket over his head.
But in the minstrel gallery over the Great Hall Carding and Spelter watched the scene with entirely different emotions.
Standing side by side they looked almost exactly like the number 10.
'What is happening?' said Spelter. He'd had a sleepless night, and wasn't thinking very straight.
'Magic is flowing into the University,' said Carding. 'That's what sourcerer means. A channel for magic. Real magic, my boy. Not the tired old stuff we've made do with these past centuries. This is the dawning of a ... a-’
'New, um, dawn?'
'Exactly. A time of miracles, a ... a-’
'Anus mirabilis?'
Carding frowned. 'Yes,' he said, eventually, 'something like that, I expect. You have quite a way with words, you know.'
'Thank you, brother.'
The senior wizard appeared to ignore the familiarity. Instead he turned and leaned on the carved rail, watching the magical displays below them. His hands automatically went to his pockets for his tobacco pouch, and then paused. He grinned, and snapped his fingers. A lighted cigar appeared in his mouth.
'Haven't been able to do that in years,' he mused. 'Big changes, my boy. They haven't realised it yet, but it's the end of Orders and Levels. That was just a — rationing system. We don't need them any more. Where is the boy?'
'Still asleep-’ Spelter began.
'I am here,' said Coin.
He stood in the archway leading to the senior wizard's quarters, holding the octiron staff that was half again as tall as he was. Little veins of yellow fire coruscated across its matt black surface, which was so dark that it looked like a slit in the world.
Spelter felt the golden eyes bore through him, as if his innermost thoughts were being scrolled across the back of his skull.
'Ah,’ he said, in a voice that he believed was jolly and avuncular but in fact sounded like a strangled death rattle. After a start like that his contribution could only get worse, and it did. 'I see you're, um, up,' he said.
'My dear boy,' said Carding.
Coin gave him a long, freezing stare.
'I saw you last night,' he said. 'Are you puissant?'
'Only mildly,' said Carding, hurriedly recalling the boy's tendency to treat wizardry as a terminal game of corkers. 'But not so puissant as you, I'm sure.'
'I am to be made Archchancellor, as is my destiny?'
'Oh, absolutely,' said Carding. 'No doubt about it. May I have a look at your staff? Such an interesting design-’
He reached out a pudgy hand.
It was a shocking breach of etiquette in any case; no wizard should even think of touching another's staff without his express permission. But there are people who can't quite believe that children are fully human, and think that the operation of normal good manners doesn't apply to them.
Carding's fingers curled around the black staff.
There was a noise that Spelter felt rather than heard, and Carding bounced across the gallery and struck the opposite wall with a sound like a sack of lard hitting a pavement.
'Don't do that,' said Coin. He turned and looked through Spelter, who had gone pale, and added: 'Help him up. He is probably not badly hurt.'
The bursar scuttled hurriedly across the floor and bent over Carding, who was breathing heavily and had gone an odd colour. He patted the wizard's hand until Carding opened one eye.
'Did you see what happened?' he whispered.
'I'm not sure. Um. What did happen?’ hissed Spelter.
'It bit me.'
'The next time you touch the staff,' said Coin, matteroffactly, 'you will die. Do you understand?'
Carding raised his head gently, in case bits of it fell off.
'Absolutely,' he said.
'And now I would like to see the University,' the boy continued. 'I have heard a great deal about it...'
Spelter helped Carding to his unsteady feet and supported him as they trotted obediently after the boy.
'Don't touch his staff,' muttered Carding.
'I'll remember, um, not to,' said Spelter firmly. 'What did it feel like?'
'Have you ever been bitten by a viper?'
'No.'
'In that case you'll understand exactly what it felt like.'
'Hmmm?'
'It wasn't like a snake bite at all.'
They hurried after the determined figure as Coin marched down the stairs and through the ravished doorway of the Great Hall.
Spelter dodged in front, anxious to make a good impression.
'This is the Great Hall,' he said. Coin turned his golden gaze towards him, and the wizard felt his mouth dry up. 'It's called that because it's a hall, dyou see. And big.'
He swallowed. 'It's a big hall,' he said, fighting to stop the last of his coherence being burned away by the searchlight of that stare. 'A great big hall, which is why it's called-’
'Who are those people?' said Coin. He pointed with his staff. The assembled wizards, who had turned to watch him enter, backed out of the way as though the staff was a flamethrower.
Spelter followed the sourcerer's stare. Coin was pointing to the portraits and statues of former Archchancellors, which decorated the walls. Full-bearded and pointhatted, clutching ornamental scrolls or holding mysterious symbolic bits of astrological equipment, they stared down with ferocious self-importance or, possibly, chronic constipation.
'From these walls,' said Carding, 'two hundred supreme mages look down upon you.'
'I don't care for them,' said Coin, and the staff streamed octarine fire. The Archchancellors vanished.
'And the windows are too small-’
Rincewind sank gently to his knees.
She looked down at him, puzzled.
'Legs given out?'
'It's — it's the hat. The Archchancellor's hat,' said Rincewind, hoarsely. His eyes narrowed. 'You've stolen it!' he shouted, struggling back to his feet and grabbing for the sparkling brim.
'It's just a hat.'
'Give it to me this minute! Women musn't touch it! It belongs to wizards!'
'Why are you getting so worked up?' she said.
Rincewind opened his mouth. Rincewind closed his mouth.
He wanted to say: It's the Archchancellor's hat, don't you understand? It's worn by the head of all wizards, well, on the head of the head of all wizards, no, metaphorically it's worn by all wizards, potentially, anyway, and it's what every wizard aspires to, it's the symbol of organised magic, it's the pointy tip of the profession, it's a symbol, it's what it means to all wizards ...
And so on. Rincewind had been told about the hat on his first day at University, and it had sunk into his impressionable mind like a lead weight into a jelly. He wasn't sure of much in the world, but he was certain that the Archchancellor's hat was important. Maybe even wizards need a little magic in their lives.
Rincewind, said the hat.
He stared at the girl. 'It spoke to me!'
'Like a voice in your head?'
'Yes!'
'It did that to me, too.'
'But it knew my name!'
Of course we do, stupid fellow. We are supposed to be a magic hat after all.
The hat's voice wasn't only clothy. It also had a strange choral effect, as if an awful lot of voices were talking at the same time, in almost perfect unison.
Rincewind pulled himself together.
'O great and wonderful hat,' he said pompously, 'strike down this impudent girl who has had the audacity, nay, the-’
Oh, do shut up. She stole us because we ordered her to. It was a near thing, too.
'But she's a-’ Rincewind hesitated. 'She's of the female persuasion...' he muttered.
So was your mother.
'Yes, well, but she ran away before I was born,' Rincewind mumbled.
Of all the disreputable taverns in all the city you could have walked into, you walked into his, complained the hat.
'He was the only wizard I could find,' said the girl, 'He looked the part. He had 'blizzard' written on his hat and everything.'
Don't believe everything you read. Too late now, anyway. We haven't got much time.
'Hold on, hold on,' said Rincewind urgently, 'What's going on? You wanted her to steal you? Why haven't we got much time?' He pointed an accusing finger at the hat. 'Anyway, you can't go around letting yourself be stolen, you're supposed to be on — on the Archchancellor's head! The ceremony was tonight, I should have been there-’
Something terrible is happening at the University. It is vital that we are not taken back, do you understand? You must take us to Klatch, where there is someone fit to wear me.
'Why?' There was something very strange about the voice, Rincewind decided. It sounded impossible to disobey, as though it was solid destiny. If it told him to walk over a cliff, he thought, he'd be halfway down before it could occur to him to disobey.
The death of all wizardry is at hand.
Rincewind looked around guiltily.
'Why?' he said.
The world is going to end.
'What, again?'
I mean it, said the hat sulkily. The triumph of the Ice Giants, the Apocralypse, the Teatime of the Gods, the whole thing.
'Can we stop it?'
The future is uncertain on that point.
Rincewind's expression of determined terror faded slowly.
'Is this a riddle?' he said.
Perhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you're told and didn't try to understand things, said the hat. Young woman, you will put us back in our box. A great many people will shortly be looking for us.
'Hey, hold on,' said Rincewind. 'I've seen you around here for years and you never talked before.'
I didn't have anything that needed to be said.
Rincewind nodded. That seemed reasonable.
'Look, just shove it in its box, and let's get going,' said the girl.
A bit more respect if you please, young lady,' said Rincewind haughtily. 'That is the symbol of ancient wizardry you happen to be addressing.'
'You carry it, then,' she said.
'Hey, look,' said Rincewind, scrambling along after her as she swept down the alleys, crossed a narrow street and entered another alley between a couple of houses that leaned together so drunkenly that their upper storeys actually touched. She stopped.
'Well?' she snapped.
'You're the mystery thief, aren't you?' he said, 'Everyone's been talking about you, how you've taken things even from locked rooms and everything. You're different than I imagined...'
'Oh?' she said coldly. 'How?'
'Well, you're ... shorter.'
'Oh, come on.'
The street cressets, not particularly common in this part of the city in any case, gave out altogether here. There was nothing but watchful darkness ahead.
'I said come on,' she repeated. 'What are you afraid of?'
Rincewind took a deep breath. 'Murderers, muggers, thieves, assassins, pickpockets, cutpurses, reevers, snigsmen, rapists and robbers,' he said. 'That's the Shades you're going into!'[8]
'Yes, but people won't come looking for us in here,' she said.
'Oh, they'll come in all right, they just won't come out,' said Rincewind. 'Nor will we. I mean, a beautiful young woman like you ... it doesn't bear thinking about ... I mean, some of the people in there ...'
'But I'll have you to protect me,' she said.
Rincewind thought he heard the sound of marching feet several streets away.
'You know,' he sighed, 'I knew you’d say that.'
Down these mean streets a man must walk, he thought. And along some of them he will break into a run.
It is so black in the Shades on this foggy spring night that it would be too dark to read about Rincewind's progress through the eerie streets, so the descriptive passage will lift up above the level of the ornate rooftops, the forest of twisty chimneys, and admire the few twinkling stars that manage to pierce the swirling billows. It will try to ignore the sounds drifting up from below the patter of feet, the rushes, the gristly noises, the groans, the muffled screams. It could be that some wild animal is pacing through the Shades after two weeks on a starvation diet.
Somewhere near the centre of the Shades — the district has never been adequately mapped — is a small courtyard. Here at least there are torches on the walls, but the light they throw is the light of the Shades themselves: mean, reddened, dark at the core.
Rincewind staggered into the yard and hung on to the wall for support. The girl stepped into the ruddy light behind him, humming to herself.
'Are you all right?' she said.
'Nurrgh,' said Rincewind.
'Sorry?'
'Those men,' he bubbled, 'I mean, the way you kicked his ... when you grabbed them by the ... when you stabbed that one right in ... who are you?'
'My name is Conina.'
Rincewind looked at her blankly for some time.
'Sorry,' he said, 'doesn't ring a bell.'
'I haven't been here long,' she said.
'Yes, I didn't think you were from around these parts,' he said. 'I would have heard.'
'I've taken lodgings here. Shall we go in?'
Rincewind glanced up at the dingy pole just visible in the smoky light of the spitting torches. It indicated that the hostelry behind the small dark door was the Troll's Head.
It might be thought that the Mended Drum, scene of unseemly scuffles only an hour ago, was a seedy disreputable tavern. In fact it was a reputable disreputable tavern. Its customers had a certain rough-hewn respectability — they might murder each other in an easygoing way, as between equals, but they didn't do it vindictively. A child could go in for a glass of lemonade and be certain of getting nothing worse than a clip round the ear when his mother heard his expanded vocabulary. On quiet nights, and when he was certain the Librarian wasn't going to come in, the landlord was even known to put bowls of peanuts on the bar.
The Troll's Head was a cesspit of a different odour. Its customers, if they reformed, tidied themselves up and generally improved their image out of all recognition might, just might, aspire to be considered the utter dregs of humanity. And in the Shades, a dreg is a dreg.
By the way, the thing on the pole isn't a sign. When they decided to call the place the Troll's Head, they didn't mess about.
Feeling sick, and clutching the grumbling hatbox to his chest, Rincewind stepped inside.
Silence. It wrapped itself around them, nearly as thickly as the smoke of a dozen substances guaranteed to turn any normal brain to cheese. Suspicious eyes peered through the smog.
A couple of dice clattered to a halt on a tabletop. They sounded very loud, and probably weren't showing Rincewind's lucky number.
He was aware of the stares of several score of customers as he followed the demure and surprisingly small figure of Conina into the room. He looked sideways into the leering faces of men who would kill him sooner than think, and in fact would find it a great deal easier.
Where a respectable tavern would have had a bar there was just a row of squat black bottles and a couple of big barrels on trestles against the wall.
The silence tightened like a tourniquet. Any minute now, Rincewind thought.
A big fat man wearing nothing but a fur vest and a leather loincloth pushed back his stool and lurched to his feet and winked evilly at his colleagues. When his mouth opened, it was like a hole with a hem.
'Looking for a man, little lady?' he said.
She looked up at him.
'Please keep away'
A snake of laughter writhed around the room. Conina's mouth snapped shut like a letterbox.
‘Ah,’ the big man gurgled, 'that's right, I likes a girl with spirit-‘
Conina's hand moved. It was a pale blur, stopping here and here: after a few seconds of disbelief the man gave a little grunt and folded up, very slowly.
Rincewind shrank back as every other man in the room leaned forward. His instinct was to run, and he knew it was an instinct that would get him instantly killed. It was the Shades out there. Whatever was going to happen to him next was going to happen to him here. It was not a reassuring thought.
A hand closed around his mouth. Two more grabbed the hatbox from his arms.
Conina spun past him, lifting her skirt to place a neat foot on a target beside Rincewind's waist. Someone whimpered in his ear and collapsed. As the girl pirouetted gracefully around she picked up two bottles, knocked out their bottoms on the shelf and landed with their jagged ends held out in front of her. Morpork daggers, they were called in the patois of the streets.
In the face of them, the Troll's Head's clientele lost interest.
'Someone got the hat,' Rincewind muttered through dry lips, 'They slipped out of the back way.'
She glared at him and made for the door. The Head's crowd of customers parted automatically, like sharks recognising another shark, and Rincewind darted anxiously after her before they came to any conclusion about him.
They ran out into another alley and pounded down it. Rincewind tried to keep up with the girl; people following her tended to tread on sharp things, and he wasn't sure she'd remember he was on her side, whatever side that was.
A thin, half-hearted drizzle was falling. And at the end of the alley was a faint blue glow.
'Wait!'
The terror in Rincewind's voice was enough to slow her down.
'What's wrong?'
'Why's he stopped?'
'I'll ask him,' said Conina, firmly.
'Why's he covered in snow?'
She stopped and turned around, arms thrust into her sides, one foot tapping impatiently on the damp cobbles.
'Rincewind, I've known you for an hour and I'm astonished you've lived even that long!'
'Yes, but I have, haven't I? I've got a sort of talent for it. Ask anyone. I'm an addict.'
'Addicted to what?'
'Life. I got hooked on it at an early age and I don't want to give it up and take it from me, this doesn't look right!'
Conina looked back at the figure surrounded by the glowing blue aura. It seemed to be looking at something in its hands.
Snow was settling on its shoulder like really bad dandruff. Terminal dandruff. Rincewind had an instinct for these things, and he had a deep suspicion that the man had gone where shampoo would be no help at all.
They sidled along a glistening wall.
'There's something very strange about him,' she conceded.
'You mean the way he's got his own private blizzard?'
'Doesn't seem to upset him. He's smiling.'
'A frozen grin, I'd call it.'
The man's icicle-hung hands had been taking the lid off the box, and the glow from the hat's octarines shone up into a pair of greedy eyes that were already heavily rimed with frost.
'Know him?' said Conina.
Rincewind shrugged. 'I've seen him around,' he said. 'He's called Larry the Fox or Fezzy the Stoat or something. Some sort of rodent, anyway. He just steals things. He's harmless.'
'He looks incredibly cold.' Conina shivered.
'I expect he's gone to a warmer place. Don't you think we should shut the box?'
It's perfectly safe now, said the hat's voice from inside the glow. And so perish all enemies of wizardry.
Rincewind wasn't about to trust what a hat said.
'We need something to shut the lid,' he muttered. 'A knife or something. You wouldn't have one, would you?'
'Look the other way,' Conina warned.
There was a rustle and another gust of perfume.
'You can look back now.'
Rincewind was handed a twelve-inch throwing knife. He took it gingerly. Little particles of metal glinted on its edge.
'Thanks.' He turned back. 'Not leaving you short, am I?'
'I have others.'
'I'll bet.'
Rincewind reached out gingerly with the knife. As it neared the leather box its blade went white and started to steam. He whimpered a little as the cold struck his hand — a burning, stabbing cold, a cold that crept up his arm and made a determined assault on his mind. He forced his numb fingers into action and, with great effort, nudged the edge of the lid with the tip of the blade.
The glow faded. The snow became sleet, then melted into drizzle.
Conina nudged him aside and pulled the box out of the frozen arms.
'I wish there was something we could do for him. It seems wrong just to leave him here.'
'He won't mind,' said Rincewind, with conviction.
'Yes, but we could at least lean him against the wall. Or something.'
Rincewind nodded, and grabbed the frozen thief by his icicle arm. The man slipped out of his grasp and hit the cobbles.
Where he shattered.
Conina looked at the pieces.
'Urg,' she said.
There was a disturbance further up the alley, coming from the back door of the Troll's Head. Rincewind felt the knife snatched from his hand and then go past his ear in a flat trajectory that ended in the doorpost twenty yards away. A head that had been sticking out withdrew hurriedly.
'We'd better go,' said Conina, hurrying along the alley. 'Is there somewhere we can hide? Your place?'
'I generally sleep at the University,' said Rincewind, hopping along behind her.
You must not return to the University, growled the hat from the depths of its box. Rincewind nodded distractedly. The idea certainly didn't seem attractive.
'Anyway, they don't allow women inside after dark,' he said.
'And before dark?'
'Not then, either.'
Conina sighed. 'That's silly. What have you wizards got against women, then?'
Rincewind's brow wrinkled. 'We're not supposed to put anything against women,' he said. 'That's the whole point.'
Sinister grey mists rolled through the docks of Morpork, dripping from the rigging, coiling around the drunken rooftops, lurking in alleys. The docks at night were thought by some to be even more dangerous than the Shades. Two muggers, a sneak thief and someone who had merely tapped Conina on the shoulder to ask her the time had already found this out.
'Do you mind if I ask you a question?' said Rincewind, stepping over the luckless pedestrian who lay coiled around his private pain.
Well?'
'I mean, I wouldn't like to cause offence.'
Well?'
'It's just that I can't help noticing-’
'Hmmm?'
'You have this certain way with strangers.' Rincewind ducked, but nothing happened.
What are you doing down there?' said Conina, testily.
,Sorry.,
'I know what you're thinking. I can't help it, I take after my father.'
Who was he, then? Cohen the Barbarian?' Rincewind grinned to show it was a joke. At least, his lips moved in a desperate crescent.
'No need to laugh about it, wizard.'
'What?'
'It's not my fault.'
Rincewind's lips moved soundlessly. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Have I got this right? Your father really is Cohen the Barbarian?'
'Yes.' The girl scowled at Rincewind. 'Everyone has to have a father,' she added. 'Even you, I imagine.'
She peered around a corner.
'All clear. Come on,' she said, and then when they were striding along the damp cobbles she continued: 'I expect your father was a wizard, probably.'
'I shouldn't think so,' said Rincewind. 'Wizardry isn't allowed to run in families.' He paused. He knew Cohen, he'd even been a guest at one of his weddings when he married a girl of Conina's age; you could say this about Cohen, he crammed every hour full of minutes. 'A lot of people would like to take after Cohen, I mean, he was the best fighter, the greatest thief, he-’
'A lot of men would,' Conina snapped. She leaned against a wall and glared at him.
'Listen,' she said, 'There's this long word, see, an old witch told me about it ...can't remember it ...you wizards know about long words.'
Rincewind thought about long words. 'Marmalade?' he volunteered.
She shook her head irritably. 'It means you take after your parents.'
Rincewind frowned. He wasn't too good on the subject of parents.
'Kleptomania? Recidivist?' he hazarded.
'Begins with an H.'
'Hedonism?' said Rincewind desperately.
'Herrydeterry,' said Conina. 'This witch explained it to me. My mother was a temple dancer for some mad god or other, and father rescued her, and — they stayed together for a while. They say I get my looks and figure from her.'
'And very good they are, too,' said Rincewind, with hopeless gallantry.
She blushed. 'Yes, well, but from him I got sinews you could moor a boat with, reflexes like a snake on a hot tin, a terrible urge to steal things and this dreadful sensation every time I meet someone that I should be throwing a knife through his eye at ninety feet. I can, too,' she added with a trace of pride.
'Gosh.'
'It tends to put men off.'
Well, it would,' said Rincewind weakly.
'I mean, when they find out, it's very hard to hang on to a boyfriend.'
'Except by the throat, I imagine,' said Rincewind.
'Not what you really need to build up a proper relationship.'
'No. I can see,' said Rincewind. 'Still, pretty good if you want to be a famous barbarian thief.'
But not,' said Conina, 'if you want to be a hairdresser.'
'Ah.'
They stared into the mist.
'Really a hairdresser?' said Rincewind.
Conina sighed.
'Not much call for a barbarian hairdresser, I expect,' said Rincewind. 'I mean, no-one wants a shampoo-and-beheading.'
'It's just that every time I see a manicure set I get this terrible urge to lay about me with a double-handed cuticle knife. I mean sword,' said Conina.
Rincewind sighed. 'I know how it is,' he said. 'I wanted to be a wizard.'
'But you are a wizard.'
'Ah. Well, of course, but-’
'Quiet!'
Rincewind found himself rammed against the wall, where a trickle of condensed mist inexplicably began to drip down his neck. A broad throwing knife had mysteriously appeared in Conina's hand, and she was crouched like a jungle animal or, even worse, a jungle human.
'What-’ Rincewind began.
'Shut up!' she hissed. 'Something's coming!'
She stood up in one fluid movement, spun on one leg and let the knife go.
There was a single, hollow, wooden thud.
Conina stood and stared. For once, the heroic blood that pounded through her veins, drowning out all chances of a lifetime in a pink pinny, was totally at a loss.
'I've just killed a wooden box,' she said.
Rincewind looked round the corner.
The Luggage stood in the dripping street, the knife still quivering in its lid, and stared at her. Then it changed its position slightly, its little legs moving in a complicated tango pattern, and stared at Rincewind. The Luggage didn't have any features at all, apart from a lock and a couple of hinges, but it could stare better than a rockful of iguanas. It could outstare a glass-eyed statue. When it came to a look of betrayed pathos, the Luggage could leave the average kicked spaniel moping back in its kennel. It had several arrowheads and broken swords sticking in it.
'What is it?' hissed Conina.
'It's just the Luggage,' said Rincewind wearily.
'Does it belong to you?'
'Not really. Sort of.'
'Is it dangerous?'
The Luggage shuffled round to stare at her again.
'There's two schools of thought about that,' said Rincewind. 'There's some people who say it's dangerous, and others who say it's very dangerous. What do you think?'
The Luggage raised its lid a fraction.
The Luggage was made from the wood of the sapient peartree, a plant so magical that it had nearly died out on the Disc and survived only in one or two places; it was a sort of rosebay willowherb, only instead of bomb sites it sprouted in areas that had seen vast expenditures of magic. Wizards' staves were traditionally made of it; so was the Luggage.
Among the Luggage's magical qualities was a fairly simple and direct one: it would follow its adopted owner anywhere. Not anywhere in any particular set of dimensions, or country, or universe, or lifetime. Anywhere. It was about as easy to shake off as a head cold and considerably more unpleasant.
The Luggage was also extremely protective of its owner. It would be hard to describe its attitude to the rest of creation, but one could start with the phrase 'bloody-minded malevolence' and work up from there.
Conina stared at that lid. It looked very much like a mouth.
'I think I'd vote for "terminally dangerous",' she said.
'It likes crisps,' volunteered Rincewind, and then added, 'Well, that's a bit strong. It eats crisps.'
'What about people?'
'Oh, and people. About fifteen so far; I think.'
'Were they good or bad?'
'Just dead, I think. It also does your laundry for you, you put your clothes in and they come out washed and ironed.'
'And covered in blood?'
'You know, that's the funny thing,' said Rincewind.
'The funny thing?' repeated Conina, her eyes not leaving the Luggage.
'Yes, because, you see, the inside isn't always the same, it's sort of multidimensional, and-’
'How does it feel about women?'
'Oh, it's not choosy. It ate a book of spells last year. Sulked for three days and then spat it out.'
'It's horrible,' said Conina, and backed away.
'Oh, yes,' said Rincewind, 'absolutely.'
'I mean the way it stares!'
'It's very good at it, isn't it?'
We must leave for Klatch, said a voice from the hatbox. One of these boats will be adequate. Commandeer it.
Rincewind looked at the dim, mist-wreathed shapes that loomed in the mist under a forest of rigging. Here and there a riding light made a little fuzzy ball of light in the gloom.
'Hard to disobey, isn't it?' said Conina.
'I'm trying,' said Rincewind. Sweat prickled on his forehead.
Go aboard now, said the hat. Rincewind's feet began to shuffle of their own accord.
'Why are you doing this to me?' he moaned.
Because I have no alternative. Believe me, if I could have found an eighth level mage I would have done so. I must not be worn!
'Why not? You are the Archchancellor's hat.'
And through me speak all the Archchancellors who ever lived. I am the University. I am the Lore. I am the symbol of magic under the control of men — and I will not be worn by a sourcerer! There must be no more sourcerers! The world is too worn out for sourcery!
Conina coughed.
'Did you understand any of that?' she said, cautiously.
'I understood some of it, but I didn't believe it,' said Rincewind. His feet remained firmly rooted to the cobbles.
They called me a figurehat! The voice was heavy with sarcasm. Fat wizards who betray everything the University ever stood for, and they called me a figurehat! Rincewind, I command you. And you, madam. Serve me well and I will grant you your deepest desire.
'How can you grant my deepest desire if the world's going to end?'
The hat appeared to think about it. Well, have you got a deepest desire that need only take a couple of minutes?
'Look, how can you do magic? You're just a-’ Rincewind's voice trailed off.
I AM magic. Proper magic. Besides, you don't get worn by some of the world's greatest wizards for two thousand years without learning a few things. Now. We must flee.
But with dignity of course.
Rincewind looked pathetically at Conina, who shrugged again.
'Don't ask me,' she said. 'This looks like an adventure. I'm doomed to have them, I'm afraid. That's genetics[9] for you.'
'But I'm no good at them! Believe me, I've been through dozens!' Rincewind wailed.
Ah. Experience, said the hat.
'No, really, I'm a terrible coward, I always run away.' Rincewind's chest heaved. 'Danger has stared me in the back of the head, oh, hundreds of times!'
I don't want you to go into danger.
'Good!'
I want you to stay OUT of danger.
Rincewind sagged. 'Why me?' he moaned.
For the good of the University. For the honour of wizardry. For the sake of the world. For your heart's desire. And I'll freeze you alive if you don't.
Rincewind breathed a sigh almost of relief. He wasn't good on bribes, or cajolery, or appeals to his better nature. But threats, now, threats were familiar. He knew where he was with threats.
The sun dawned on Small Gods' Day like a badly poached egg. The mists had closed in over Ankh-Morpork in streamers of silver and gold — damp, warm, silent. There was the distant grumbling of springtime thunder, out on the plains. It seemed warmer than it ought to be.
Wizards normally slept late. On this morning, however, many of them had got up early and were wandering the corridors aimlessly. They could feel the change in the air.
The University was filling up with magic.
Of course, it was usually full of magic anyway, but it was an old, comfortable magic, as exciting and dangerous as a bedroom slipper. But seeping through the ancient fabric was a new magic, saw-edged and vibrant, bright and cold as comet fire. It sleeted through the stones and crackled off sharp edges like static electricity on the nylon carpet of Creation. It buzzed and sizzled. It curled wizardly beards, poured in wisps of octarine smoke from fingers that had done nothing more mystical for three decades than a little light illusion. How can the effect be described with delicacy and taste? For most of the wizards, it was like being an elderly man who, suddenly faced with a beautiful young woman, finds to his horror and delight and astonishment that the flesh is suddenly as willing as the spirit.
And in the halls and corridors of the University the word was being whispered: Sourcery!
A few wizards surreptitiously tried spells that they hadn't been able to master for years, and watched in amazement as they unrolled perfectly. Sheepishly at first, and then with confidence, and then with shouts and whoops, they threw fireballs to one another or produced live doves out of their hats or made multi-coloured sequins fall out of the air.
Sourcery! One or two wizards, stately men who had hitherto done nothing more blameworthy that eat a live oyster, turned themselves invisible and chased the maids and bedders through the corridors.
Sourcery! Some of the bolder spirits had tried out ancient flying spells and were bobbing a little uncertainly among the rafters. Sourcery!
Only the Librarian didn't share in the manic breakfast. He watched the antics for some time, pursing his prehensile lips, and then knuckled stiffly off towards his Library. If anyone had bothered to notice, they'd have heard him bolting the door.
It was deathly quiet in the Library. The books were no longer frantic. They'd passed through their fear and out into the calm waters of abject terror, and they crouched on their shelves like so many mesmerised rabbits.
A long hairy arm reached up and grabbed Casplock's Compleet Lexicon of Majik with Precepts for the Wise before it could back away, soothed its terror with a longfingered hand, and opened it under 'S'. The Librarian smoothed the trembling page gently and ran a horny nail down the entries until he came to:
Sourcerer, n. (mythical). A proto-wizard, a doorway through which new majik may enterr the world, a wizard not limited by the physical capabilities of hys own bodie, not by Destinie, nor by Deathe. It is written that there once werre sourcerers in the youth of the world but not may there by nowe and blessed be, for sourcery is not for menne and the return of sourcery would mean the Ende of the Worlde ... If the Creator hadd meant menne to bee as goddes, he ould have given them wings. SEE ALSO: thee Apocralypse, the legende of thee Ice Giants, and thee Teatime of the Goddes.
The Librarian read the cross-references, turned back to the first entry, and stared at it through deep dark eyes for a long time. Then he put the book back carefully, crept under his desk, and pulled the blanket over his head.
But in the minstrel gallery over the Great Hall Carding and Spelter watched the scene with entirely different emotions.
Standing side by side they looked almost exactly like the number 10.
'What is happening?' said Spelter. He'd had a sleepless night, and wasn't thinking very straight.
'Magic is flowing into the University,' said Carding. 'That's what sourcerer means. A channel for magic. Real magic, my boy. Not the tired old stuff we've made do with these past centuries. This is the dawning of a ... a-’
'New, um, dawn?'
'Exactly. A time of miracles, a ... a-’
'Anus mirabilis?'
Carding frowned. 'Yes,' he said, eventually, 'something like that, I expect. You have quite a way with words, you know.'
'Thank you, brother.'
The senior wizard appeared to ignore the familiarity. Instead he turned and leaned on the carved rail, watching the magical displays below them. His hands automatically went to his pockets for his tobacco pouch, and then paused. He grinned, and snapped his fingers. A lighted cigar appeared in his mouth.
'Haven't been able to do that in years,' he mused. 'Big changes, my boy. They haven't realised it yet, but it's the end of Orders and Levels. That was just a — rationing system. We don't need them any more. Where is the boy?'
'Still asleep-’ Spelter began.
'I am here,' said Coin.
He stood in the archway leading to the senior wizard's quarters, holding the octiron staff that was half again as tall as he was. Little veins of yellow fire coruscated across its matt black surface, which was so dark that it looked like a slit in the world.
Spelter felt the golden eyes bore through him, as if his innermost thoughts were being scrolled across the back of his skull.
'Ah,’ he said, in a voice that he believed was jolly and avuncular but in fact sounded like a strangled death rattle. After a start like that his contribution could only get worse, and it did. 'I see you're, um, up,' he said.
'My dear boy,' said Carding.
Coin gave him a long, freezing stare.
'I saw you last night,' he said. 'Are you puissant?'
'Only mildly,' said Carding, hurriedly recalling the boy's tendency to treat wizardry as a terminal game of corkers. 'But not so puissant as you, I'm sure.'
'I am to be made Archchancellor, as is my destiny?'
'Oh, absolutely,' said Carding. 'No doubt about it. May I have a look at your staff? Such an interesting design-’
He reached out a pudgy hand.
It was a shocking breach of etiquette in any case; no wizard should even think of touching another's staff without his express permission. But there are people who can't quite believe that children are fully human, and think that the operation of normal good manners doesn't apply to them.
Carding's fingers curled around the black staff.
There was a noise that Spelter felt rather than heard, and Carding bounced across the gallery and struck the opposite wall with a sound like a sack of lard hitting a pavement.
'Don't do that,' said Coin. He turned and looked through Spelter, who had gone pale, and added: 'Help him up. He is probably not badly hurt.'
The bursar scuttled hurriedly across the floor and bent over Carding, who was breathing heavily and had gone an odd colour. He patted the wizard's hand until Carding opened one eye.
'Did you see what happened?' he whispered.
'I'm not sure. Um. What did happen?’ hissed Spelter.
'It bit me.'
'The next time you touch the staff,' said Coin, matteroffactly, 'you will die. Do you understand?'
Carding raised his head gently, in case bits of it fell off.
'Absolutely,' he said.
'And now I would like to see the University,' the boy continued. 'I have heard a great deal about it...'
Spelter helped Carding to his unsteady feet and supported him as they trotted obediently after the boy.
'Don't touch his staff,' muttered Carding.
'I'll remember, um, not to,' said Spelter firmly. 'What did it feel like?'
'Have you ever been bitten by a viper?'
'No.'
'In that case you'll understand exactly what it felt like.'
'Hmmm?'
'It wasn't like a snake bite at all.'
They hurried after the determined figure as Coin marched down the stairs and through the ravished doorway of the Great Hall.
Spelter dodged in front, anxious to make a good impression.
'This is the Great Hall,' he said. Coin turned his golden gaze towards him, and the wizard felt his mouth dry up. 'It's called that because it's a hall, dyou see. And big.'
He swallowed. 'It's a big hall,' he said, fighting to stop the last of his coherence being burned away by the searchlight of that stare. 'A great big hall, which is why it's called-’
'Who are those people?' said Coin. He pointed with his staff. The assembled wizards, who had turned to watch him enter, backed out of the way as though the staff was a flamethrower.
Spelter followed the sourcerer's stare. Coin was pointing to the portraits and statues of former Archchancellors, which decorated the walls. Full-bearded and pointhatted, clutching ornamental scrolls or holding mysterious symbolic bits of astrological equipment, they stared down with ferocious self-importance or, possibly, chronic constipation.
'From these walls,' said Carding, 'two hundred supreme mages look down upon you.'
'I don't care for them,' said Coin, and the staff streamed octarine fire. The Archchancellors vanished.
'And the windows are too small-’