‘A lot of
‘Begins with an H.’
‘Hedonism?’ said Rincewind desperately.
‘
‘And very good they are, too,’ said Rincewind, with hopeless gallantry.
She blushed. ‘Yes, well, but from
‘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.
‘
‘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.
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
‘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?’
‘Hard to disobey, isn’t it?’ said Conina.
‘I’m trying,’ said Rincewind. Sweat prickled on his forehead.
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.
‘How can you grant my deepest desire if the world’s going to end?’
The hat appeared to think about it.
‘Look, how can you do magic? You’re just a—’ Rincewind’s voice trailed off.
‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘This looks like an adventure. I’m doomed to have them, I’m afraid. That’s genetics for you.’
‘But I’m no good at them! Believe me, I’ve been through dozens!’ Rincewind wailed.
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!’
———
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! One or two wizards, stately men who had hitherto done nothing more blameworthy than 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
before it could back away, soothed its terror with a long-fingered 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:...
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—’
‘
‘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 conkers. ‘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, matter-of-factly, ‘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, d’you 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 point-hatted, 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—’
‘The ceiling is too high—’
‘Everything is too
Something tapped him on the head. He screamed.
‘Stop that!’ shouted Carding above the din. ‘And pull your hat up! Show a little dignity!’