'The ceiling is too high-’
'Everything is too old-’
The wizards threw themselves flat as the staff flared and spat. Spelter pulled his hat over his ayes and rolled under a table when the very fabric of the University flowed around him. Wood creaked, stone groaned.
Something tapped him on the head. He screamed.
'Stop that!' shouted Carding above the din. 'And pull your hat up! Show a little dignity!'
'Why are you under the table, then?' said Spelter sourly.
'We must seize our opportunity!'
What, like the staff?'
'Follow me!'
Spelter emerged into a bright, a horrible bright new world.
Gone were the rough stone walls. Gone were the dark, owlhaunted rafters. Gone was the tiled floor, with its eye-boggling pattern of black and white tiles.
Gone, too, were the high small windows, with their gentle patina of antique grease. Raw sunlight streamed into the hall for the first time.
The wizards stared at one another, mouths open, and what they saw was not what they had always thought they'd seen. The unforgiving rays transmuted rich gold embroidery into dusty gilt, exposed opulent fabric as rather stained and threadbare velvet, turned fine flowing beards into nicotinestained tangles, betrayed splendid diamonds as rather inferior Ankhstones. The fresh light probed and prodded, stripping away the comfortable shadows.
And, Spelter had to admit, what was left didn't inspire confidence. He was suddenly acutely aware that under his robes — his tattered, badly-faded robes, he realised with an added spasm of guilt; the robes with the perforated area where the mice had got at them — he was still wearing his bedroom slippers.
The hall was now almost all glass. What wasn't glass was marble. It was all so splendid that Spelter felt quite unworthy.
He turned to Carding, and saw that his fellow wizard was staring at Coin with his eyes gleaming.
Most of the other wizards had the same expression. If wizards weren't attracted to power they wouldn't be wizards, and this was real power. The staff had them charmed like so many cobras.
Carding reached out to touch the boy on the shoulder, and then thought better of it.
'Magnificent,' he said, instead.
He turned to the assembled wizardry and raised his arms. 'My brothers,' he intoned, 'we have in our midst a wizard of great power!'
Spelter tugged at his robe.
'He nearly killed you,' he hissed. Carding ignored him.
'And I propose-’ Carding swallowed — 'I propose him for Archchancellor!'
There was a moment's silence, and then a burst of cheering and shouts of dissent. Several quarrels broke out at the back of the crowd. The wizards nearer the front weren't quite so ready to argue. They could see the smile on Coin's face. It was bright and cold, like the smile on the face of the moon.
There was a commotion, and an elderly wizard fought his way to the front of the throng.
Spelter recognised Ovin Hakardly, a seventh-level wizard and a lecturer in Lore. He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.
'Are you mad?' he said. 'No-one but a wizard of the eighth level may become Archchancellor! And he must be elected by the other most senior wizards in solemn convocation! (Duly guided by the gods, of course.) It is the Lore! (The very idea!)'
Hakardly had studied the Lore of magic for years and, because magic always tends to be a two-way process, it had made its mark on him; he gave the impression of being as fragile as a cheese straw, and in some unaccountable way the dryness of his endeavours had left him with the ability to pronounce punctuation. He stood vibrating with indignation and, he became aware, he was rapidly standing alone. In fact he was the centre of an expanding circle of empty floor fringed with wizards who were suddenly ready to swear that they'd never clapped eyes on him in their life.
Coin had raised his staff.
Hakardly raised an admonitory finger.
'You do not frighten me, young man,' he snapped. 'Talented you may be, but magical talent alone is not enough. There are many other qualities required of a great wizard. Administrative ability, for example, and wisdom, and the-’
Coin lowered his staff.
'The Lore applies to all wizards, does it not?' he said.
'Absolutely! It was drawn up-’
'But I am not a wizard, Lord Hakardly.'
The wizard hesitated. ‘Ah,’ he said, and hesitated again. 'Good point,' he said.
'But I am well aware of the need for wisdom, foresight and good advice, and I would be honoured if you could see your way clear to providing those much-valued commodities. For example — why is it that wizards do not rule the world?'
'What?'
'It is a simple question. There are in this room-’ Coin's lips moved for a fraction of a second — 'four hundred and seventy-two wizards, skilled in the most subtle of arts. Yet all you rule are these few acres of rather inferior architecture. Why is this?'
The most senior wizards exchanged knowing glances.
'Such it may appear,' said Hakardly eventually, 'but, my child, we have domains beyond the ken of the temporal power.' His eyes gleamed. 'Magic can surely take the mind to inner landscape of arcane-’
'Yes, yes,' said Coin. 'Yet there are extremely solid walls outside your University. Why is this?'
Carding ran his tongue over his lips. It was extraordinary. The child was speaking his thoughts.
'You squabble for power,' said Coin, sweetly, 'and yet, beyond these walls, to the man who carts nightsoil or the average merchant, is there really so much difference between a highlevel mage and a mere conjuror?'
Hakardly stared at him in complete and untrammelled astonishment.
'Child, it's obvious to the meanest citizen,' he said. 'The robes and trimmings themselves
'Ah,' said Coin, 'the robes and trimmings. Of course.'
A short, heavy and thoughtful silence filled the hall.
'It seems to me,' said Coin eventually, 'that wizards rule only wizards. Who rules in the reality outside?'
'As far as the city is concerned, that would be the Patrician, Lord Vetinari,’ said Carding with some caution.
'And is he a fair and just ruler?'
Carding thought about it. The Patrician's spy network was said to be superb. 'I would say,' he said carefully, 'that he is unfair and unjust, but scrupulously evenhanded. He is unfair and unjust to everyone, without fear or favour.'
'And you are content with this?' said Coin.
Carding tried not to catch Hakardly's eye.
'It's not a case of being content with it,' he said. 'I suppose we've not given it much thought. A wizard's true vocation, you see-’
'Is it really true that the wise suffer themselves to be ruled in this way?'
Carding growled. 'Of course not! Don't be silly! We merely tolerate it. That's what wisdom is all about, you'll find that out when you grow up, it's a case of biding one's time-’
'Where is this Patrician? I would like to see him.'
'That can be arranged, of course,' said Carding. 'The Patrician is always graciously pleased to grant wizards an interview, and-’
'Now I will grant him an interview,' said Coin. 'He must learn that wizards have bided their time long enough. Stand back, please.'
He pointed the staff.
The temporal ruler of the sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork was sitting in his chair at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, looking for any signs of intelligence in intelligence reports. The throne had been empty for more than two thousand years, since the death of the last of the line of the kings of Ankh. Legend said that one day the city would have a king again, and went on with various comments about magic swords, strawberry birthmarks and all the other things that legends gabble on about in these circumstances.
In fact the only real qualification now was the ability to stay alive for more than about five minutes after revealing the existence of any magic swords or birthmarks, because the great merchant families of Ankh had been ruling the city for the last twenty centuries and were about to relinquish power as the average limpet is to let go of its rock.
The current Patrician, head of the extremely rich and powerful Vetinari family, was thin, tall and apparently as cold-blooded as a dead penguin. Just by looking at him you could tell he was the sort of man you'd expect to keep a white cat, and caress it idly while sentencing people to death in a piranha tank; and you'd hazard for good measure that he probably collected rare thin porcelain, turning it over and over in his blue-white fingers while distant screams echoed from the depths of the dungeons. You wouldn't put it past him to use the word 'exquisite' and have thin lips. He looked the kind of person who, when they blink, you mark it off on the calendar.
Practically none of this was in fact the case, although he did have a small and exceedingly elderly wire-haired terrier called Wuffles that smelled badly and wheezed at people. It was said to be the only thing in the entire world he truly cared about. He did of course sometimes have people horribly tortured to death, but this was considered to be perfectly acceptable behaviour for a civic ruler and generally approved of by the overwhelming majority of citizens.[10] The people of Ankh are of a practical persuasion, and felt that the Patrician's edict forbidding all street theatre and mime artists made up for a lot of things. He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.
The Patrician sighed, and laid the latest report on top of the large heap beside the chair.
When he had been a little boy he had seen a showman who could keep a dozen plates spinning in the air. If the man had been capable of working the same trick with a hundred of them, Lord Vetinari considered, he would just about begin to be ready for training in the art of ruling Ankh-Morpork, a city once described as resembling an overturned termite heap without the charm.
He glanced out of the window at the distant pillar of the Tower of Art, the centre of Unseen University, and wondered vaguely whether any of those tiresome old fools could come up with a better way of collating all this paperwork. They wouldn't, of course — you couldn't expect a wizard to understand anything as basic as elementary civic espionage.
He sighed again, and picked up the transcript of what the president of the Thieves' Guild had said to his deputy at midnight in the soundproof room hidden behind the office in the Guild headquarters, and ...
Was in the Great Ha ...
Was not in the Great Hall of Unseen University, where he had spent some interminable dinners, but there were a lot of wizards around him and they were ...
... different.
Like Death, which some of the city's less fortunate citizens considered he intimately resembled, the Patrician never got angry until he had time to think about it. But sometimes he thought very quickly.
He stared around at the assembled wizards, but there was something about them that choked the words of outrage in his throat. They looked like sheep who had suddenly found a trapped wolf at exactly the same time as they heard about the idea of unity being strength.
There was something about their eyes.
'What is the meaning of this outr-’ he hesitated, and concluded, 'this? A merry Small Gods' Day prank, is it?'
His eyes swivelled to meet those of a small boy holding a long metal staff. The child was smiling the oldest smile the Patrician had ever seen.
Carding coughed.
'My lord,' he began.
'Out with it, man,' snapped Lord Vetinari.
Carding had been diffident, but the Patrician's tone was just that tiny bit too peremptory. The wizard's knuckles went white.
'I am a wizard of the eighth level,' he said quietly, 'and you will not use that tone to me.'
'Well said,' said Coin.
`Take him to the dungeons,' said Carding.
'We haven't got any dungeons,' said Spelter. 'This is a university.'
'Then take him to the wine cellars,' snapped Carding. 'And while you're down there, build some dungeons.'
'Have you the faintest inkling of what you are doing?' said the-Patrician. 'I demand to know the meaning of this-’
'You demand nothing at all,' said Carding. 'And the meaning is that from now on the wizards will rule, as it was ordained. Now take-’
'You? Rule Ankh-Morpork? Wizards who can barely govern themselves?'
'Yes!' Carding was aware that this wasn't the last word in repartee, and was even more alive to the fact that the dog Wuffles, who had been teleported along with his master, had waddled painfully across the floor and was peering short-sightedly at the wizard's boots.
'Then all truly wise men would prefer the safety of a nice deep dungeon,' said the Patrician. 'And now you will cease this foolery and replace me in my palace, and it is just possible that we will say no more about this. Or at least that you won't have the chance to.'
Wuffles gave up investigating Carding's boots and trotted towards Coin, shedding a few hairs on the way.
'This pantomime has gone on long enough,' said the Patrician. 'Now I am getting-‘
Wuffles growled. It was a deep, primeval noise, which struck a chord in the racial memory of all those present and filled them with an urgent desire to climb a tree. It suggested long grey shapes hunting in the dawn of time. It was astonishing that such a small animal could contain so much menace, and all of it was aimed at the staff in Coin's hand.
The Patrician strode forward to snatch the animal, and Carding raised his hand and sent a blaze of orange and blue fire searing across the room.
The Patrician vanished. On the spot where he had been standing a small yellow lizard blinked and glared with malevolent reptilian stupidity.
Carding looked in astonishment at his fingers, as if for the first time.
‘All right,' he whispered hoarsely.
The wizards stared down at the panting lizard, and then out at the city sparkling in the early morning light. Out there was the council of aldermen, the city watch, the Guild of Thieves, the Guild of Merchants, the priesthoods ...and none of them knew what was about to hit them.
It has begun, said the hat, from its box on the deck.
'What has?' said Rincewind.
The rule of sourcery.
Rincewind looked blank. 'Is that good?'
Do you ever understand anything anyone says to you?
Rincewind felt on firmer ground here. 'No,' he said. 'Not always. Not lately. Not often.'
'Are you sure you are a wizard?' said Conina.
'It's the only thing I've ever been sure of,' he said, with conviction.
'How strange.'
Rincewind sat on the Luggage in the sun on the foredeck of the Ocean Waltzer as it lurched peacefully across the green waters of the Circle Sea. Around them men did what he was sure were important nautical things, and he hoped they were doing them correctly, because next to heights he hated depths most of all.
'You look worried,' said Conina, who was cutting his hair. Rincewind tried to make his head as small as possible as the blades flashed by.
'That's because I am.'
What exactly is the Apocralypse?'
Rincewind hesitated. 'Well', he said, 'it's the end of the world. Sort of.'
`Sort of? Sort of the end of the world? You mean we won't be certain? We'll look around and say "Pardon me, did you hear something?"?'
'It's just that no two seers have ever agreed about it. There have been all kinds of vague predictions. Quite mad, some of them. So it was called the Apocralypse.' He looked embarrassed. 'It's a sort of apocryphal Apocalypse. A kind of pun, you see.'
'Not very good.'
'No. I suppose not.'[11]
Conina's scissors snipped busily.
'I must say the captain seemed quite happy to have us aboard,' she observed.
`That's because they think it's lucky to have a wizard on the boat,' said Rincewind. 'It isn't, of course.'
'Lots of people believe it,' she said.
'Oh, it's lucky for other people, just not for me. I can't swim.'
'What, not a stroke?'
Rincewind hesitated, and twiddled the star on his hat cautiously.
About how deep is the sea here, would you say? Approximately?' he said.
'About a dozen fathoms, I believe.'
'Then I could probably swim about a dozen fathoms, whatever they are.'
'Stop trembling like that, I nearly had your ear off,' Conina snapped. She glared at a passing seaman and waved her scissors. 'What's the matter, you never saw a man have a haircut before?'
Someone up in the rigging made a remark which caused a ripple of ribald laughter in the topgallants, unless they were forecastles.
'I shall pretend I didn't hear that,' said Conina, and gave the comb a savage yank, dislodging numerous inoffensive small creatures.
'Well, you should keep still!'
'It's a little difficult to keep still knowing who it is that's waving a couple of steel blades around my head!'
And so the morning passed, with scudding wavelets, the creaking of the rigging, and a rather complex layer cut. Rincewind had to admit, looking at himself in a shard of mirror, that there was a definite improvement.
The captain had said that they were bound for the city of Al Khali, on the hubward coast of Klatch.
`Like Ankh, only with sand instead of mud,' said Rincewind, leaning over the rail. 'But quite a good slave market.'
'Slavery is immoral,' said Conina firmly.
`Is it? Gosh,' said Rincewind.
'Would you like me to trim your beard?' said Conina, hopefully.
She stopped, scissors drawn, and stared out to sea.
'Is there a kind of sailor that uses a canoe with sort of extra bits on the side and a sort of red eye painted on the front and a small sail?' she said.
'I've heard of Klatchian slave pirates,' said Rincewind, 'but this is a big boat. I shouldn't think one of them would dare attack it.'
'One of them wouldn't,' said Conina, still staring at the fuzzy area where the sea became the sky, 'but these five might.'
Rincewind peered at the distant haze, and then looked up at the man on watch, who shook his head.
'Come on,' he chuckled, with all the humour of a blocked drain. 'You can't really see anything out there. Can you?'
'Ten men in each canoe,' said Conina grimly.
'Look, a joke's a joke-’
'With long curvy swords.'
'Well, I can't see a-’
— their long and rather dirty hair blowing in the wind -
'With split ends, I expect?' said Rincewind sourly.
'Are you trying to be funny?'
'Me?'
'And here's me without a weapon,' said Conina, sweeping back across the deck. 'I bet there isn't a decent sword anywhere on this boat.'
'Never mind. Perhaps they've just come for a quick shampoo.'
While Conina rummaged frantically in her pack Rincewind sidled over to the Archchancellor's hatbox and cautiously raised the lid.
'There's nothing out there, is there?' he asked.
How should I know? Put me on.
'What? On my head?'
Good grief.
'But I'm not an Archchancellor!' said Rincewind. 'I mean, I've heard of cool-headed, but-’
I need to use your eyes. Now put me on. On your head.
'Um.'
Trust me.
Rincewind couldn't disobey. He gingerly removed his battered grey hat, looked longingly at its dishevelled star, and lifted the Archchancellor's hat out of its box. It felt rather heavier than he'd expected. The octarines around the crown were glowing faintly.
He lowered it carefully on to his new hairstyle, clutching the brim tightly in case he felt the first icy chill.
In fact he simply felt incredibly light. And there was a feeling of great knowledge and power — not actually present, but just, mentally speaking, on the tip of his metaphorical tongue.
Odd scraps of memory flickered across his mind, and they weren't any memories he remembered remembering before. He probed gently, as one touches a hollow tooth with the tongue, and there they were -
Two hundred dead Archchancellors, dwindling into the leaden, freezing past, one behind the other, watched him with blank grey eyes.
That's why it's so cold, he told himself, the warmth seeps into the dead world. Oh, no ...
When the hat spoke, he saw two hundred pairs of pale lips move.
Who are you?
Rincewind, thought Rincewind. And in the inner recesses of his head he tried to think privately to himself ... help.
He felt his knees begin to buckle under the weight of centuries.
What's it like, being dead? he thought.
Death is but a sleep, said the dead mages.
But what does it feel like? Rincewind thought.
You will have an unrivalled chance to find out when those war canoes get here, Rincewind.
With a yelp of terror he thrust upwards and forced the hat off his head. Real life and sound flooded back in, but since someone was frantically banging a gong very close to his ear this was not much of an improvement. The canoes were visible to everyone now, cutting through the water with an eerie silence. Those black-clad figures manning the paddles should have been whooping and screaming; it wouldn't have made it any better, but it would have seemed more appropriate. The silence bespoke an unpleasant air of purpose.
'Gods, that was awful,' he said. 'Mind you, so is this.'
Crew members scurried across the deck, cutlasses in hand. Conina tapped Rincewind on the shoulder.
'They'll try to take us alive,' she said.
'Oh,' said Rincewind weakly. 'Good.'
Then he remembered something else about Klatchian slavers, and his throat went dry.
'You'll — you'll be the one they'll really be after,' he said. 'I've heard about what they do-’
'Should I know?' said Conina. To Rincewind's horror she didn't appear to have found a weapon.
'They'll throw you in a seraglio!'
She shrugged. 'Could be worse.'
'But it's got all these spikes and when they shut the door-’ hazarded Rincewind. The canoes were close enough now to see the determined expressions of the rowers.
'That's not a seraglio. That's an Iron Maiden. Don't you know what a seraglio is?'
'Um ...'
She told him. He went crimson.
'Anyway, they'll have to capture me first,' said Conina primly. 'It's you who should be worrying.'
'Why me?'
'You're the only other one who's wearing a dress.'
Rincewind bridled. 'It's a robe-’
'Robe, dress. You better hope they know the difference.'
A hand like a bunch of bananas with rings on grabbed Rincewind's shoulder and spun him around. The captain, a Hublander built on generous bear-like lines, beamed at him through a mass of facial hair.
'Hah!' he said. 'They know not that we aboard a wizard have! To create in their bellies the burning green fire! Hah?'
The dark forests of his eyebrows wrinkled as it became apparent that Rincewind wasn't immediately ready to hurl vengeful magic at the invaders.
'Hah?' he insisted, making a mere single syllable do the work of a whole string of blood-congealing threats.
'Yes, well, I'm just — I'm just girding my loins,' said Rincewind. 'hat's what I'm doing. Girding them. Green fire, you want?'
'Also to make hot lead run in their bones,' said the captain. 'Also their skins to blister and living scorpions without mercy to eat their brains from inside, and-’
The leading canoe came alongside and a couple of grapnels thudded into the rail. As the first of the savers appeared the captain hurried away, drawing his sword. He stopped for a moment and turned to Rincewind.
'You gird quickly,' he said. 'Or no loins. Hah?'
Rincewind turned to Conina, who was leaning on the rail examining her fingernails.
'You'd better get on with it,' she said. 'That's fifty green fires and hot leads to go, with a side order for blisters and scorpions. Hold the mercy.'
'This sort of thing is always happening to me,' he moaned.
He peered over the rail to what he thought of as the main floor of the boat. The invaders were winning by sheer weight of numbers, using nets and ropes to tangle the struggling crew. They worked in absolute silence, clubbing and dodging, avoiding the use of swords wherever possible.
'Musn't damage the merchandise,' said Conina. Rincewind watched in horror as the captain went down under a press of dark shapes, screaming, 'Green fire! Green fire!'
Rincewind backed away. He wasn't any good at magic, but he'd had a hundred per cent success at staying alive up to now and didn't want to spoil the record. All he needed to do was to learn how to swim in the time it took to dive into the sea. It was worth a try.
'What are you waiting for? Let's go while they're occupied,' he said to Conina.
'I need a sword,' she said.
'You'll be spoilt for choice in a minute.'
'One will be enough.'
Rincewind kicked the Luggage.
'Come on,' he snarled. 'You've got a lot of floating to do.'
The Luggage extended its little legs with exaggerated nonchalance, turned slowly, and settled down beside the girl.
'Traitor,' said Rincewind to its hinges.
The battle already seemed to be over. Five of the raiders stalked up the ladder to the afterdeck, leaving most of their colleagues to round up the defeated crew below. The leader pulled down his mask and leered briefly and swarthily at Conina; and then he turned and leered for a slightly longer period at Rincewind.
'This is a robe,' said Rincewind quickly. 'And you'd better watch out, because I'm a wizard.' He took a deep breath. 'Lay a finger on me, and you'll make me wish you hadn't. I warn you.'
A wizard? Wizards don't make good strong slaves,' mused the leader.
'Absolutely right,' said Rincewind. 'So if you'll just see your way clear to letting me go-’
The leader turned back to Conina, and signalled to one of his companions. He jerked a tattooed thumb towards Rincewind.
'Do not kill him too quickly. In fact-’ he paused, and treated Rincewind to a smile full of teeth. 'Maybe ... yes. And why not? Can you sing, wizard?'
'I might be able to,' said Rincewind, cautiously. Why?'
'You could be just the man the Seriph needs for a job in the harem.' A couple of slavers sniggered.
'It could be a unique opportunity,' the leader went on, encouraged by this audience appreciation. There was more broad-minded approval from behind him.
Rincewind backed away. 'I don't think so,' he said, 'thanks all the same. I'm not cut out for that kind of thing.'
'Oh, but you could be,' said the leader, his eyes bright. 'You could be.'
'Oh, for goodness sake,' muttered Conina. She glanced at the men on either side of her, and then her hands moved. The one stabbed with the scissors was possibly better off than the one she raked with the comb, given the kind of mess a steel comb can make of a face. Then she reached down, snatched up a sword dropped by one of the stricken men, and lunged at the other two.
The leader turned at the screams, and saw the Luggage behind him with its lid open. And then Rincewind cannoned into the back of him, pitching him forward into whatever oblivion lay in the multidimensional depths of the chest.
There was the start of a bellow, abruptly cut off.
Then there was a click like the shooting of the bolt on the gates of Hell.
Rincewind backed away, trembling. :A unique opportunity,' he muttered under his breath, having just got the reference.
At least he had a unique opportunity to watch Conina fight. Not many men ever got to see it twice.
Her opponents started off grinning at the temerity of a slight young girl in attacking them, and then rapidly passed through various stages of puzzlement, doubt, concern and abject gibbering terror as they apparently became the centre of a flashing, tightening circle of steel.
She disposed of the last of the leader's bodyguard with a couple of thrusts that made Rincewind's eyes water and, with a sigh, vaulted the rail on the main deck. To Rincewind's annoyance the Luggage barrelled after her, cushioning its fall by dropping heavily on to a slaver, and adding to the sudden panic of the invaders because, while it was bad enough to be attacked with deadly and ferocious accuracy by a rather pretty girl in a white dress with flowers on it, it was even worse for the male ego to be tripped up and bitten by a travel accessory; it was pretty bad for all the rest of the male, too.
Rincewind peered over the railing.
'Showoff,' he muttered.
A throwing knife clipped the wood near his chin and ricocheted past his ear. He raised his hand to the sudden stinging pain, and stared at in in horror before gently passing out. It wasn't blood in general he couldn't stand the sight of, it was just his blood in particular that was so upsetting.
The market in Sator Square, the wide expanse of cobbles outside the black gates of the University, was in full cry.
It was said that everything in Ankh-Morpork was for sale except for the beer and the women, both of which one merely hired. And most of the merchandise was available in Sator market, which over the years had grown, stall by stall, until the newcomers were up against the ancient stones of the University itself; in fact they made a handy display area for bolts of cloth and racks of charms.
No-one noticed the gates swing back. But a silence rolled out of the University, spreading out across the noisy, crowded square like the first fresh wavelets of the tide trickling over a brackish swamp. In fact it wasn't true silence at all, but a great roar of anti-noise. Silence isn't the opposite of sound, it is merely its absence. But this was the sound that lies on the far side of silence, anti-noise, its shadowy decibels throttling the market cries like a fall of velvet.
The crowds stared around wildly, mouthing like goldfish and with about as much effect. All heads turned towards the gates.
Something else was flowing out besides that cacophony of hush. The stalls nearest the empty gateway began to grind across the cobbles, shedding merchandise. Their owners dived out of the way as the stalls hit the row behind them and scraped relentlessly onwards, piling up until a wide avenue of clean, empty stones stretched the whole width of the square.
Ardrothy Longstaff, Purveyor of Pies Full of Personality, peered over the top of the wreckage of his stall in time to see the wizards emerge.
He knew wizards, or up until now he'd always thought he did. They were vague old boys, harmless enough in their way, dressed like ancient sofas, always ready customers for any of his merchandise that happened to be marked down on account of age and rather more personality than a prudent housewife would be prepared to put up with.
But these wizards were something new to Ardrothy. They walked out into Sator Square as if they owned it. Little blue sparks flashed around their feet. They seemed a little taller, somehow.
Or perhaps it was just the way they carried themselves.
Yes, that was it ...
Ardrothy had a touch of magic in his genetic makeup, and as he watched the wizards sweep across the square it told him that the very best thing he could do for his health would be to pack his knives, and mincers in his little pack and have it away out of the city at any time in the next ten minutes.
The last wizard in the group lagged behind his colleagues and looked around the square with disdain.
'There used to be fountains out here,' he said. 'You people — be off.'
The traders stared at one another. Wizards normally spoke imperiously, that was to be expected. But there was an edge to the voice that no-one had heard before. It had knuckles in it.
Ardrothy's eyes swivelled sideways. Arising out of the ruins of his jellied starfish and clam stall like an avenging angel, dislodging various molluscs from his beard and spitting vinegar, was Miskin Koble, who was said to be able to open oysters with one hand. Years of pulling limpets off rocks and wrestling the giant cockles in Ankh Bay had given him the kind of physical development normally associated with tectonic plates. He didn't so much stand up as unfold.
Then he thudded his way towards the wizard and pointed a trembling finger at the ruins of his stall, from which half a dozen enterprising lobsters were making a determined bid for freedom. Muscles moved around the edges of his mouth like angry eels.
'Did you do that?' he demanded.
'Stand aside, oaf,' said the wizard, three words which in the opinion of Ardrothy gave him the ongoing life expectancy of a glass cymbal.
'I hates wizards,' said Koble. 'I really hates wizards. So I am going to hit you, all right?'
He brought his fist back and let fly.
The wizard raised an eyebrow, yellow fire sprang up around the shellfish salesman, there was a noise like tearing silk, and Koble had vanished. All that was left was his boots, standing forlornly on the cobbles with little wisps of smoke coming out of them.
No-one knows why smoking boots always remain, no matter how big the explosion. It seems to be just one of those things.
It seemed to the watchful eyes of Ardrothy that the wizard himself was nearly as socked as the crowd, but he rallied magnificently and gave his staff a flourish.
'You people had better jolly well learn from this,' he said. 'No-one raises their hand to a wizard, do you understand? There are going to be a lot of changes around here. Yes, what do you want?'
This last comment was to Ardrothy, who was trying to sneak past unnoticed. He scrabbled quickly in his pie tray.
'I was just wondering if your honourship would care to purchase one of these finest pies,' he said hurriedly. 'Full of nourish-’
'Watch closely, pie-selling person,' said the wizard. He stretched out his hand, made a strange gesture with his fingers, and produced a pie out of the air.
It was fat, golden-brown and beautifully glazed. just by looking at it Ardrothy knew it was packed edge to edge with prime lean pork, with none oft hose spacious areas of good fresh air under the lid that represented his own profit margin. It was the kind of pie piglets hope to be when they grew up.
His heart sank. His ruin was floating in front of him with short-crust pastry on it.
'Want a taste?' said the wizard. 'There's plenty more where that came from.'
'Wherever it came from,' said Ardrothy.
He looked past the shiny pastry to the face of the wizard, and in the manic gleam of those eyes he saw the world turning upside down.
He turned away, a broken man, and set out for the nearest city gate.
As if it wasn't bad enough that wizards were killing people, he thought bitterly, they were taking away their livelihood as well.
A bucket of water splashed into Rincewind's face, jerking him out of a dreadful dream in which a hundred masked women were attempting to trim his hair with broadswords and cutting it very fine indeed. Some people, having a nightmare like that, would dismiss it as castration anxiety, but Rincewind's subconscious knew being-cut-to-tiny-bits-mortal dread when it saw it. It saw it most of the time.
He sat up.
'Are you all right?' said Conina, anxiously.
Rincewind swivelled his eyes around the cluttered deck.
'Not necessarily,' he said cautiously. There didn't seem to be any black-clad slavers around, at least vertically. There were a good many crew members, all of them maintaining a respectful distance from Conina. Only the captain stood reasonably close, an inane grin on his face.
'They left,' said Conina. 'Took what they could and left.'
'They bastards,' said the captain, 'but they paddle pretty fast!' Conina winced as he gave her a ringing slap on the back. 'She fight real good for a lady,' he added. 'Yes!'
Rincewind got unsteadily to his feet. The boat was scudding along cheerfully towards a distant smear on the horizon that had to be hubward Klatch. He was totally unharmed. He began to cheer up a bit.
The captain gave them both a hearty nod and hurried off to shout orders connected with sails and ropes and things. Conina sat down on the Luggage, which didn't seem to object.
'He said he's so grateful he'll take us all the way to Al Khali,’ she said.
'I thought that's what we arranged anyway,' said Rincewind. 'I saw you give him money, and everything.'
'Yes, but he was planning to overpower us and sell me as a slave when he got there.'
'What, not sell me?' said Rincewind, and then snorted, 'Of course, it's the wizard's robes, he wouldn't dare-’
'Um. Actually, he said he'd have to give you away,' said Conina, picking intently at an imaginary splinter on the Luggage's lid.
'Give me away?'
'Yes. Um. Sort of like, one free wizard with every concubine sold? Um.'
'I don't see what vegetables have got to do with it.'
Conina gave him a long, hard stare, and when he didn't break into a smile she sighed and said, 'Why are you wizards always nervous around women?'
Rincewind bridled at this slur. 'I like that!' he said, 'I'll have you know that — look, anyway, the point is, I get along very well with women in general, it's just women with swords that upset me.' He considered this for a while, and added, 'Everyone with swords upset me, if it comes to that.'
Conina picked industriously at the splinter. The Luggage gave a contented creak.
'I know something else that'll upset you,' she muttered.
'Everything is too old-’
The wizards threw themselves flat as the staff flared and spat. Spelter pulled his hat over his ayes and rolled under a table when the very fabric of the University flowed around him. Wood creaked, stone groaned.
Something tapped him on the head. He screamed.
'Stop that!' shouted Carding above the din. 'And pull your hat up! Show a little dignity!'
'Why are you under the table, then?' said Spelter sourly.
'We must seize our opportunity!'
What, like the staff?'
'Follow me!'
Spelter emerged into a bright, a horrible bright new world.
Gone were the rough stone walls. Gone were the dark, owlhaunted rafters. Gone was the tiled floor, with its eye-boggling pattern of black and white tiles.
Gone, too, were the high small windows, with their gentle patina of antique grease. Raw sunlight streamed into the hall for the first time.
The wizards stared at one another, mouths open, and what they saw was not what they had always thought they'd seen. The unforgiving rays transmuted rich gold embroidery into dusty gilt, exposed opulent fabric as rather stained and threadbare velvet, turned fine flowing beards into nicotinestained tangles, betrayed splendid diamonds as rather inferior Ankhstones. The fresh light probed and prodded, stripping away the comfortable shadows.
And, Spelter had to admit, what was left didn't inspire confidence. He was suddenly acutely aware that under his robes — his tattered, badly-faded robes, he realised with an added spasm of guilt; the robes with the perforated area where the mice had got at them — he was still wearing his bedroom slippers.
The hall was now almost all glass. What wasn't glass was marble. It was all so splendid that Spelter felt quite unworthy.
He turned to Carding, and saw that his fellow wizard was staring at Coin with his eyes gleaming.
Most of the other wizards had the same expression. If wizards weren't attracted to power they wouldn't be wizards, and this was real power. The staff had them charmed like so many cobras.
Carding reached out to touch the boy on the shoulder, and then thought better of it.
'Magnificent,' he said, instead.
He turned to the assembled wizardry and raised his arms. 'My brothers,' he intoned, 'we have in our midst a wizard of great power!'
Spelter tugged at his robe.
'He nearly killed you,' he hissed. Carding ignored him.
'And I propose-’ Carding swallowed — 'I propose him for Archchancellor!'
There was a moment's silence, and then a burst of cheering and shouts of dissent. Several quarrels broke out at the back of the crowd. The wizards nearer the front weren't quite so ready to argue. They could see the smile on Coin's face. It was bright and cold, like the smile on the face of the moon.
There was a commotion, and an elderly wizard fought his way to the front of the throng.
Spelter recognised Ovin Hakardly, a seventh-level wizard and a lecturer in Lore. He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.
'Are you mad?' he said. 'No-one but a wizard of the eighth level may become Archchancellor! And he must be elected by the other most senior wizards in solemn convocation! (Duly guided by the gods, of course.) It is the Lore! (The very idea!)'
Hakardly had studied the Lore of magic for years and, because magic always tends to be a two-way process, it had made its mark on him; he gave the impression of being as fragile as a cheese straw, and in some unaccountable way the dryness of his endeavours had left him with the ability to pronounce punctuation. He stood vibrating with indignation and, he became aware, he was rapidly standing alone. In fact he was the centre of an expanding circle of empty floor fringed with wizards who were suddenly ready to swear that they'd never clapped eyes on him in their life.
Coin had raised his staff.
Hakardly raised an admonitory finger.
'You do not frighten me, young man,' he snapped. 'Talented you may be, but magical talent alone is not enough. There are many other qualities required of a great wizard. Administrative ability, for example, and wisdom, and the-’
Coin lowered his staff.
'The Lore applies to all wizards, does it not?' he said.
'Absolutely! It was drawn up-’
'But I am not a wizard, Lord Hakardly.'
The wizard hesitated. ‘Ah,’ he said, and hesitated again. 'Good point,' he said.
'But I am well aware of the need for wisdom, foresight and good advice, and I would be honoured if you could see your way clear to providing those much-valued commodities. For example — why is it that wizards do not rule the world?'
'What?'
'It is a simple question. There are in this room-’ Coin's lips moved for a fraction of a second — 'four hundred and seventy-two wizards, skilled in the most subtle of arts. Yet all you rule are these few acres of rather inferior architecture. Why is this?'
The most senior wizards exchanged knowing glances.
'Such it may appear,' said Hakardly eventually, 'but, my child, we have domains beyond the ken of the temporal power.' His eyes gleamed. 'Magic can surely take the mind to inner landscape of arcane-’
'Yes, yes,' said Coin. 'Yet there are extremely solid walls outside your University. Why is this?'
Carding ran his tongue over his lips. It was extraordinary. The child was speaking his thoughts.
'You squabble for power,' said Coin, sweetly, 'and yet, beyond these walls, to the man who carts nightsoil or the average merchant, is there really so much difference between a highlevel mage and a mere conjuror?'
Hakardly stared at him in complete and untrammelled astonishment.
'Child, it's obvious to the meanest citizen,' he said. 'The robes and trimmings themselves
'Ah,' said Coin, 'the robes and trimmings. Of course.'
A short, heavy and thoughtful silence filled the hall.
'It seems to me,' said Coin eventually, 'that wizards rule only wizards. Who rules in the reality outside?'
'As far as the city is concerned, that would be the Patrician, Lord Vetinari,’ said Carding with some caution.
'And is he a fair and just ruler?'
Carding thought about it. The Patrician's spy network was said to be superb. 'I would say,' he said carefully, 'that he is unfair and unjust, but scrupulously evenhanded. He is unfair and unjust to everyone, without fear or favour.'
'And you are content with this?' said Coin.
Carding tried not to catch Hakardly's eye.
'It's not a case of being content with it,' he said. 'I suppose we've not given it much thought. A wizard's true vocation, you see-’
'Is it really true that the wise suffer themselves to be ruled in this way?'
Carding growled. 'Of course not! Don't be silly! We merely tolerate it. That's what wisdom is all about, you'll find that out when you grow up, it's a case of biding one's time-’
'Where is this Patrician? I would like to see him.'
'That can be arranged, of course,' said Carding. 'The Patrician is always graciously pleased to grant wizards an interview, and-’
'Now I will grant him an interview,' said Coin. 'He must learn that wizards have bided their time long enough. Stand back, please.'
He pointed the staff.
The temporal ruler of the sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork was sitting in his chair at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, looking for any signs of intelligence in intelligence reports. The throne had been empty for more than two thousand years, since the death of the last of the line of the kings of Ankh. Legend said that one day the city would have a king again, and went on with various comments about magic swords, strawberry birthmarks and all the other things that legends gabble on about in these circumstances.
In fact the only real qualification now was the ability to stay alive for more than about five minutes after revealing the existence of any magic swords or birthmarks, because the great merchant families of Ankh had been ruling the city for the last twenty centuries and were about to relinquish power as the average limpet is to let go of its rock.
The current Patrician, head of the extremely rich and powerful Vetinari family, was thin, tall and apparently as cold-blooded as a dead penguin. Just by looking at him you could tell he was the sort of man you'd expect to keep a white cat, and caress it idly while sentencing people to death in a piranha tank; and you'd hazard for good measure that he probably collected rare thin porcelain, turning it over and over in his blue-white fingers while distant screams echoed from the depths of the dungeons. You wouldn't put it past him to use the word 'exquisite' and have thin lips. He looked the kind of person who, when they blink, you mark it off on the calendar.
Practically none of this was in fact the case, although he did have a small and exceedingly elderly wire-haired terrier called Wuffles that smelled badly and wheezed at people. It was said to be the only thing in the entire world he truly cared about. He did of course sometimes have people horribly tortured to death, but this was considered to be perfectly acceptable behaviour for a civic ruler and generally approved of by the overwhelming majority of citizens.[10] The people of Ankh are of a practical persuasion, and felt that the Patrician's edict forbidding all street theatre and mime artists made up for a lot of things. He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.
The Patrician sighed, and laid the latest report on top of the large heap beside the chair.
When he had been a little boy he had seen a showman who could keep a dozen plates spinning in the air. If the man had been capable of working the same trick with a hundred of them, Lord Vetinari considered, he would just about begin to be ready for training in the art of ruling Ankh-Morpork, a city once described as resembling an overturned termite heap without the charm.
He glanced out of the window at the distant pillar of the Tower of Art, the centre of Unseen University, and wondered vaguely whether any of those tiresome old fools could come up with a better way of collating all this paperwork. They wouldn't, of course — you couldn't expect a wizard to understand anything as basic as elementary civic espionage.
He sighed again, and picked up the transcript of what the president of the Thieves' Guild had said to his deputy at midnight in the soundproof room hidden behind the office in the Guild headquarters, and ...
Was in the Great Ha ...
Was not in the Great Hall of Unseen University, where he had spent some interminable dinners, but there were a lot of wizards around him and they were ...
... different.
Like Death, which some of the city's less fortunate citizens considered he intimately resembled, the Patrician never got angry until he had time to think about it. But sometimes he thought very quickly.
He stared around at the assembled wizards, but there was something about them that choked the words of outrage in his throat. They looked like sheep who had suddenly found a trapped wolf at exactly the same time as they heard about the idea of unity being strength.
There was something about their eyes.
'What is the meaning of this outr-’ he hesitated, and concluded, 'this? A merry Small Gods' Day prank, is it?'
His eyes swivelled to meet those of a small boy holding a long metal staff. The child was smiling the oldest smile the Patrician had ever seen.
Carding coughed.
'My lord,' he began.
'Out with it, man,' snapped Lord Vetinari.
Carding had been diffident, but the Patrician's tone was just that tiny bit too peremptory. The wizard's knuckles went white.
'I am a wizard of the eighth level,' he said quietly, 'and you will not use that tone to me.'
'Well said,' said Coin.
`Take him to the dungeons,' said Carding.
'We haven't got any dungeons,' said Spelter. 'This is a university.'
'Then take him to the wine cellars,' snapped Carding. 'And while you're down there, build some dungeons.'
'Have you the faintest inkling of what you are doing?' said the-Patrician. 'I demand to know the meaning of this-’
'You demand nothing at all,' said Carding. 'And the meaning is that from now on the wizards will rule, as it was ordained. Now take-’
'You? Rule Ankh-Morpork? Wizards who can barely govern themselves?'
'Yes!' Carding was aware that this wasn't the last word in repartee, and was even more alive to the fact that the dog Wuffles, who had been teleported along with his master, had waddled painfully across the floor and was peering short-sightedly at the wizard's boots.
'Then all truly wise men would prefer the safety of a nice deep dungeon,' said the Patrician. 'And now you will cease this foolery and replace me in my palace, and it is just possible that we will say no more about this. Or at least that you won't have the chance to.'
Wuffles gave up investigating Carding's boots and trotted towards Coin, shedding a few hairs on the way.
'This pantomime has gone on long enough,' said the Patrician. 'Now I am getting-‘
Wuffles growled. It was a deep, primeval noise, which struck a chord in the racial memory of all those present and filled them with an urgent desire to climb a tree. It suggested long grey shapes hunting in the dawn of time. It was astonishing that such a small animal could contain so much menace, and all of it was aimed at the staff in Coin's hand.
The Patrician strode forward to snatch the animal, and Carding raised his hand and sent a blaze of orange and blue fire searing across the room.
The Patrician vanished. On the spot where he had been standing a small yellow lizard blinked and glared with malevolent reptilian stupidity.
Carding looked in astonishment at his fingers, as if for the first time.
‘All right,' he whispered hoarsely.
The wizards stared down at the panting lizard, and then out at the city sparkling in the early morning light. Out there was the council of aldermen, the city watch, the Guild of Thieves, the Guild of Merchants, the priesthoods ...and none of them knew what was about to hit them.
It has begun, said the hat, from its box on the deck.
'What has?' said Rincewind.
The rule of sourcery.
Rincewind looked blank. 'Is that good?'
Do you ever understand anything anyone says to you?
Rincewind felt on firmer ground here. 'No,' he said. 'Not always. Not lately. Not often.'
'Are you sure you are a wizard?' said Conina.
'It's the only thing I've ever been sure of,' he said, with conviction.
'How strange.'
Rincewind sat on the Luggage in the sun on the foredeck of the Ocean Waltzer as it lurched peacefully across the green waters of the Circle Sea. Around them men did what he was sure were important nautical things, and he hoped they were doing them correctly, because next to heights he hated depths most of all.
'You look worried,' said Conina, who was cutting his hair. Rincewind tried to make his head as small as possible as the blades flashed by.
'That's because I am.'
What exactly is the Apocralypse?'
Rincewind hesitated. 'Well', he said, 'it's the end of the world. Sort of.'
`Sort of? Sort of the end of the world? You mean we won't be certain? We'll look around and say "Pardon me, did you hear something?"?'
'It's just that no two seers have ever agreed about it. There have been all kinds of vague predictions. Quite mad, some of them. So it was called the Apocralypse.' He looked embarrassed. 'It's a sort of apocryphal Apocalypse. A kind of pun, you see.'
'Not very good.'
'No. I suppose not.'[11]
Conina's scissors snipped busily.
'I must say the captain seemed quite happy to have us aboard,' she observed.
`That's because they think it's lucky to have a wizard on the boat,' said Rincewind. 'It isn't, of course.'
'Lots of people believe it,' she said.
'Oh, it's lucky for other people, just not for me. I can't swim.'
'What, not a stroke?'
Rincewind hesitated, and twiddled the star on his hat cautiously.
About how deep is the sea here, would you say? Approximately?' he said.
'About a dozen fathoms, I believe.'
'Then I could probably swim about a dozen fathoms, whatever they are.'
'Stop trembling like that, I nearly had your ear off,' Conina snapped. She glared at a passing seaman and waved her scissors. 'What's the matter, you never saw a man have a haircut before?'
Someone up in the rigging made a remark which caused a ripple of ribald laughter in the topgallants, unless they were forecastles.
'I shall pretend I didn't hear that,' said Conina, and gave the comb a savage yank, dislodging numerous inoffensive small creatures.
'Well, you should keep still!'
'It's a little difficult to keep still knowing who it is that's waving a couple of steel blades around my head!'
And so the morning passed, with scudding wavelets, the creaking of the rigging, and a rather complex layer cut. Rincewind had to admit, looking at himself in a shard of mirror, that there was a definite improvement.
The captain had said that they were bound for the city of Al Khali, on the hubward coast of Klatch.
`Like Ankh, only with sand instead of mud,' said Rincewind, leaning over the rail. 'But quite a good slave market.'
'Slavery is immoral,' said Conina firmly.
`Is it? Gosh,' said Rincewind.
'Would you like me to trim your beard?' said Conina, hopefully.
She stopped, scissors drawn, and stared out to sea.
'Is there a kind of sailor that uses a canoe with sort of extra bits on the side and a sort of red eye painted on the front and a small sail?' she said.
'I've heard of Klatchian slave pirates,' said Rincewind, 'but this is a big boat. I shouldn't think one of them would dare attack it.'
'One of them wouldn't,' said Conina, still staring at the fuzzy area where the sea became the sky, 'but these five might.'
Rincewind peered at the distant haze, and then looked up at the man on watch, who shook his head.
'Come on,' he chuckled, with all the humour of a blocked drain. 'You can't really see anything out there. Can you?'
'Ten men in each canoe,' said Conina grimly.
'Look, a joke's a joke-’
'With long curvy swords.'
'Well, I can't see a-’
— their long and rather dirty hair blowing in the wind -
'With split ends, I expect?' said Rincewind sourly.
'Are you trying to be funny?'
'Me?'
'And here's me without a weapon,' said Conina, sweeping back across the deck. 'I bet there isn't a decent sword anywhere on this boat.'
'Never mind. Perhaps they've just come for a quick shampoo.'
While Conina rummaged frantically in her pack Rincewind sidled over to the Archchancellor's hatbox and cautiously raised the lid.
'There's nothing out there, is there?' he asked.
How should I know? Put me on.
'What? On my head?'
Good grief.
'But I'm not an Archchancellor!' said Rincewind. 'I mean, I've heard of cool-headed, but-’
I need to use your eyes. Now put me on. On your head.
'Um.'
Trust me.
Rincewind couldn't disobey. He gingerly removed his battered grey hat, looked longingly at its dishevelled star, and lifted the Archchancellor's hat out of its box. It felt rather heavier than he'd expected. The octarines around the crown were glowing faintly.
He lowered it carefully on to his new hairstyle, clutching the brim tightly in case he felt the first icy chill.
In fact he simply felt incredibly light. And there was a feeling of great knowledge and power — not actually present, but just, mentally speaking, on the tip of his metaphorical tongue.
Odd scraps of memory flickered across his mind, and they weren't any memories he remembered remembering before. He probed gently, as one touches a hollow tooth with the tongue, and there they were -
Two hundred dead Archchancellors, dwindling into the leaden, freezing past, one behind the other, watched him with blank grey eyes.
That's why it's so cold, he told himself, the warmth seeps into the dead world. Oh, no ...
When the hat spoke, he saw two hundred pairs of pale lips move.
Who are you?
Rincewind, thought Rincewind. And in the inner recesses of his head he tried to think privately to himself ... help.
He felt his knees begin to buckle under the weight of centuries.
What's it like, being dead? he thought.
Death is but a sleep, said the dead mages.
But what does it feel like? Rincewind thought.
You will have an unrivalled chance to find out when those war canoes get here, Rincewind.
With a yelp of terror he thrust upwards and forced the hat off his head. Real life and sound flooded back in, but since someone was frantically banging a gong very close to his ear this was not much of an improvement. The canoes were visible to everyone now, cutting through the water with an eerie silence. Those black-clad figures manning the paddles should have been whooping and screaming; it wouldn't have made it any better, but it would have seemed more appropriate. The silence bespoke an unpleasant air of purpose.
'Gods, that was awful,' he said. 'Mind you, so is this.'
Crew members scurried across the deck, cutlasses in hand. Conina tapped Rincewind on the shoulder.
'They'll try to take us alive,' she said.
'Oh,' said Rincewind weakly. 'Good.'
Then he remembered something else about Klatchian slavers, and his throat went dry.
'You'll — you'll be the one they'll really be after,' he said. 'I've heard about what they do-’
'Should I know?' said Conina. To Rincewind's horror she didn't appear to have found a weapon.
'They'll throw you in a seraglio!'
She shrugged. 'Could be worse.'
'But it's got all these spikes and when they shut the door-’ hazarded Rincewind. The canoes were close enough now to see the determined expressions of the rowers.
'That's not a seraglio. That's an Iron Maiden. Don't you know what a seraglio is?'
'Um ...'
She told him. He went crimson.
'Anyway, they'll have to capture me first,' said Conina primly. 'It's you who should be worrying.'
'Why me?'
'You're the only other one who's wearing a dress.'
Rincewind bridled. 'It's a robe-’
'Robe, dress. You better hope they know the difference.'
A hand like a bunch of bananas with rings on grabbed Rincewind's shoulder and spun him around. The captain, a Hublander built on generous bear-like lines, beamed at him through a mass of facial hair.
'Hah!' he said. 'They know not that we aboard a wizard have! To create in their bellies the burning green fire! Hah?'
The dark forests of his eyebrows wrinkled as it became apparent that Rincewind wasn't immediately ready to hurl vengeful magic at the invaders.
'Hah?' he insisted, making a mere single syllable do the work of a whole string of blood-congealing threats.
'Yes, well, I'm just — I'm just girding my loins,' said Rincewind. 'hat's what I'm doing. Girding them. Green fire, you want?'
'Also to make hot lead run in their bones,' said the captain. 'Also their skins to blister and living scorpions without mercy to eat their brains from inside, and-’
The leading canoe came alongside and a couple of grapnels thudded into the rail. As the first of the savers appeared the captain hurried away, drawing his sword. He stopped for a moment and turned to Rincewind.
'You gird quickly,' he said. 'Or no loins. Hah?'
Rincewind turned to Conina, who was leaning on the rail examining her fingernails.
'You'd better get on with it,' she said. 'That's fifty green fires and hot leads to go, with a side order for blisters and scorpions. Hold the mercy.'
'This sort of thing is always happening to me,' he moaned.
He peered over the rail to what he thought of as the main floor of the boat. The invaders were winning by sheer weight of numbers, using nets and ropes to tangle the struggling crew. They worked in absolute silence, clubbing and dodging, avoiding the use of swords wherever possible.
'Musn't damage the merchandise,' said Conina. Rincewind watched in horror as the captain went down under a press of dark shapes, screaming, 'Green fire! Green fire!'
Rincewind backed away. He wasn't any good at magic, but he'd had a hundred per cent success at staying alive up to now and didn't want to spoil the record. All he needed to do was to learn how to swim in the time it took to dive into the sea. It was worth a try.
'What are you waiting for? Let's go while they're occupied,' he said to Conina.
'I need a sword,' she said.
'You'll be spoilt for choice in a minute.'
'One will be enough.'
Rincewind kicked the Luggage.
'Come on,' he snarled. 'You've got a lot of floating to do.'
The Luggage extended its little legs with exaggerated nonchalance, turned slowly, and settled down beside the girl.
'Traitor,' said Rincewind to its hinges.
The battle already seemed to be over. Five of the raiders stalked up the ladder to the afterdeck, leaving most of their colleagues to round up the defeated crew below. The leader pulled down his mask and leered briefly and swarthily at Conina; and then he turned and leered for a slightly longer period at Rincewind.
'This is a robe,' said Rincewind quickly. 'And you'd better watch out, because I'm a wizard.' He took a deep breath. 'Lay a finger on me, and you'll make me wish you hadn't. I warn you.'
A wizard? Wizards don't make good strong slaves,' mused the leader.
'Absolutely right,' said Rincewind. 'So if you'll just see your way clear to letting me go-’
The leader turned back to Conina, and signalled to one of his companions. He jerked a tattooed thumb towards Rincewind.
'Do not kill him too quickly. In fact-’ he paused, and treated Rincewind to a smile full of teeth. 'Maybe ... yes. And why not? Can you sing, wizard?'
'I might be able to,' said Rincewind, cautiously. Why?'
'You could be just the man the Seriph needs for a job in the harem.' A couple of slavers sniggered.
'It could be a unique opportunity,' the leader went on, encouraged by this audience appreciation. There was more broad-minded approval from behind him.
Rincewind backed away. 'I don't think so,' he said, 'thanks all the same. I'm not cut out for that kind of thing.'
'Oh, but you could be,' said the leader, his eyes bright. 'You could be.'
'Oh, for goodness sake,' muttered Conina. She glanced at the men on either side of her, and then her hands moved. The one stabbed with the scissors was possibly better off than the one she raked with the comb, given the kind of mess a steel comb can make of a face. Then she reached down, snatched up a sword dropped by one of the stricken men, and lunged at the other two.
The leader turned at the screams, and saw the Luggage behind him with its lid open. And then Rincewind cannoned into the back of him, pitching him forward into whatever oblivion lay in the multidimensional depths of the chest.
There was the start of a bellow, abruptly cut off.
Then there was a click like the shooting of the bolt on the gates of Hell.
Rincewind backed away, trembling. :A unique opportunity,' he muttered under his breath, having just got the reference.
At least he had a unique opportunity to watch Conina fight. Not many men ever got to see it twice.
Her opponents started off grinning at the temerity of a slight young girl in attacking them, and then rapidly passed through various stages of puzzlement, doubt, concern and abject gibbering terror as they apparently became the centre of a flashing, tightening circle of steel.
She disposed of the last of the leader's bodyguard with a couple of thrusts that made Rincewind's eyes water and, with a sigh, vaulted the rail on the main deck. To Rincewind's annoyance the Luggage barrelled after her, cushioning its fall by dropping heavily on to a slaver, and adding to the sudden panic of the invaders because, while it was bad enough to be attacked with deadly and ferocious accuracy by a rather pretty girl in a white dress with flowers on it, it was even worse for the male ego to be tripped up and bitten by a travel accessory; it was pretty bad for all the rest of the male, too.
Rincewind peered over the railing.
'Showoff,' he muttered.
A throwing knife clipped the wood near his chin and ricocheted past his ear. He raised his hand to the sudden stinging pain, and stared at in in horror before gently passing out. It wasn't blood in general he couldn't stand the sight of, it was just his blood in particular that was so upsetting.
The market in Sator Square, the wide expanse of cobbles outside the black gates of the University, was in full cry.
It was said that everything in Ankh-Morpork was for sale except for the beer and the women, both of which one merely hired. And most of the merchandise was available in Sator market, which over the years had grown, stall by stall, until the newcomers were up against the ancient stones of the University itself; in fact they made a handy display area for bolts of cloth and racks of charms.
No-one noticed the gates swing back. But a silence rolled out of the University, spreading out across the noisy, crowded square like the first fresh wavelets of the tide trickling over a brackish swamp. In fact it wasn't true silence at all, but a great roar of anti-noise. Silence isn't the opposite of sound, it is merely its absence. But this was the sound that lies on the far side of silence, anti-noise, its shadowy decibels throttling the market cries like a fall of velvet.
The crowds stared around wildly, mouthing like goldfish and with about as much effect. All heads turned towards the gates.
Something else was flowing out besides that cacophony of hush. The stalls nearest the empty gateway began to grind across the cobbles, shedding merchandise. Their owners dived out of the way as the stalls hit the row behind them and scraped relentlessly onwards, piling up until a wide avenue of clean, empty stones stretched the whole width of the square.
Ardrothy Longstaff, Purveyor of Pies Full of Personality, peered over the top of the wreckage of his stall in time to see the wizards emerge.
He knew wizards, or up until now he'd always thought he did. They were vague old boys, harmless enough in their way, dressed like ancient sofas, always ready customers for any of his merchandise that happened to be marked down on account of age and rather more personality than a prudent housewife would be prepared to put up with.
But these wizards were something new to Ardrothy. They walked out into Sator Square as if they owned it. Little blue sparks flashed around their feet. They seemed a little taller, somehow.
Or perhaps it was just the way they carried themselves.
Yes, that was it ...
Ardrothy had a touch of magic in his genetic makeup, and as he watched the wizards sweep across the square it told him that the very best thing he could do for his health would be to pack his knives, and mincers in his little pack and have it away out of the city at any time in the next ten minutes.
The last wizard in the group lagged behind his colleagues and looked around the square with disdain.
'There used to be fountains out here,' he said. 'You people — be off.'
The traders stared at one another. Wizards normally spoke imperiously, that was to be expected. But there was an edge to the voice that no-one had heard before. It had knuckles in it.
Ardrothy's eyes swivelled sideways. Arising out of the ruins of his jellied starfish and clam stall like an avenging angel, dislodging various molluscs from his beard and spitting vinegar, was Miskin Koble, who was said to be able to open oysters with one hand. Years of pulling limpets off rocks and wrestling the giant cockles in Ankh Bay had given him the kind of physical development normally associated with tectonic plates. He didn't so much stand up as unfold.
Then he thudded his way towards the wizard and pointed a trembling finger at the ruins of his stall, from which half a dozen enterprising lobsters were making a determined bid for freedom. Muscles moved around the edges of his mouth like angry eels.
'Did you do that?' he demanded.
'Stand aside, oaf,' said the wizard, three words which in the opinion of Ardrothy gave him the ongoing life expectancy of a glass cymbal.
'I hates wizards,' said Koble. 'I really hates wizards. So I am going to hit you, all right?'
He brought his fist back and let fly.
The wizard raised an eyebrow, yellow fire sprang up around the shellfish salesman, there was a noise like tearing silk, and Koble had vanished. All that was left was his boots, standing forlornly on the cobbles with little wisps of smoke coming out of them.
No-one knows why smoking boots always remain, no matter how big the explosion. It seems to be just one of those things.
It seemed to the watchful eyes of Ardrothy that the wizard himself was nearly as socked as the crowd, but he rallied magnificently and gave his staff a flourish.
'You people had better jolly well learn from this,' he said. 'No-one raises their hand to a wizard, do you understand? There are going to be a lot of changes around here. Yes, what do you want?'
This last comment was to Ardrothy, who was trying to sneak past unnoticed. He scrabbled quickly in his pie tray.
'I was just wondering if your honourship would care to purchase one of these finest pies,' he said hurriedly. 'Full of nourish-’
'Watch closely, pie-selling person,' said the wizard. He stretched out his hand, made a strange gesture with his fingers, and produced a pie out of the air.
It was fat, golden-brown and beautifully glazed. just by looking at it Ardrothy knew it was packed edge to edge with prime lean pork, with none oft hose spacious areas of good fresh air under the lid that represented his own profit margin. It was the kind of pie piglets hope to be when they grew up.
His heart sank. His ruin was floating in front of him with short-crust pastry on it.
'Want a taste?' said the wizard. 'There's plenty more where that came from.'
'Wherever it came from,' said Ardrothy.
He looked past the shiny pastry to the face of the wizard, and in the manic gleam of those eyes he saw the world turning upside down.
He turned away, a broken man, and set out for the nearest city gate.
As if it wasn't bad enough that wizards were killing people, he thought bitterly, they were taking away their livelihood as well.
A bucket of water splashed into Rincewind's face, jerking him out of a dreadful dream in which a hundred masked women were attempting to trim his hair with broadswords and cutting it very fine indeed. Some people, having a nightmare like that, would dismiss it as castration anxiety, but Rincewind's subconscious knew being-cut-to-tiny-bits-mortal dread when it saw it. It saw it most of the time.
He sat up.
'Are you all right?' said Conina, anxiously.
Rincewind swivelled his eyes around the cluttered deck.
'Not necessarily,' he said cautiously. There didn't seem to be any black-clad slavers around, at least vertically. There were a good many crew members, all of them maintaining a respectful distance from Conina. Only the captain stood reasonably close, an inane grin on his face.
'They left,' said Conina. 'Took what they could and left.'
'They bastards,' said the captain, 'but they paddle pretty fast!' Conina winced as he gave her a ringing slap on the back. 'She fight real good for a lady,' he added. 'Yes!'
Rincewind got unsteadily to his feet. The boat was scudding along cheerfully towards a distant smear on the horizon that had to be hubward Klatch. He was totally unharmed. He began to cheer up a bit.
The captain gave them both a hearty nod and hurried off to shout orders connected with sails and ropes and things. Conina sat down on the Luggage, which didn't seem to object.
'He said he's so grateful he'll take us all the way to Al Khali,’ she said.
'I thought that's what we arranged anyway,' said Rincewind. 'I saw you give him money, and everything.'
'Yes, but he was planning to overpower us and sell me as a slave when he got there.'
'What, not sell me?' said Rincewind, and then snorted, 'Of course, it's the wizard's robes, he wouldn't dare-’
'Um. Actually, he said he'd have to give you away,' said Conina, picking intently at an imaginary splinter on the Luggage's lid.
'Give me away?'
'Yes. Um. Sort of like, one free wizard with every concubine sold? Um.'
'I don't see what vegetables have got to do with it.'
Conina gave him a long, hard stare, and when he didn't break into a smile she sighed and said, 'Why are you wizards always nervous around women?'
Rincewind bridled at this slur. 'I like that!' he said, 'I'll have you know that — look, anyway, the point is, I get along very well with women in general, it's just women with swords that upset me.' He considered this for a while, and added, 'Everyone with swords upset me, if it comes to that.'
Conina picked industriously at the splinter. The Luggage gave a contented creak.
'I know something else that'll upset you,' she muttered.