‘I know what he did to Billias!’
‘What did he do?’
‘I don’t want to know!’
‘Brothers, brothers,’ said Spelter soothingly. He looked down at their worried faces and thought: too many dinners. Too many afternoons waiting for the servants to bring in the tea. Too much time spent in stuffy rooms reading old books written by dead men. Too much gold brocade and ridiculous ceremony. Too much fat. The whole University is ripe for one good push …
Or one good pull …
‘I wonder if we really have, um, a problem here,’ he said.
Gravie Derment of the Sages of the Unknown Shadow hit the table with his fist.
‘Good grief, man!’ he snapped. ‘Some child wanders in out of the night, beats two of the University’s finest, sits down in the Archchancellor’s chair and you wonder if we have a problem? The boy’s a natural! From what we’ve seen tonight, there isn’t a wizard on the Disc who could stand against him!’
‘Why should we stand against him?’ said Spelter, in a reasonable tone of voice.
‘Because he’s more powerful than we are!’
‘Yes?’ Spelter’s voice would have made a sheet of glass look like a ploughed field, it made honey look like gravel.
‘It stands to reason-’
Gravie hesitated. Spelter gave him an encouraging smile.
‘Ahem.’
The ahemmer was Marmaric Carding, head of the Hoodwinkers. He steepled his beringed fingers and peered sharply at Spelter over the top of them. The bursar disliked him intensely. He had considerable doubt about the man’s intelligence. He suspected it might be quite high, and that behind those vein-crazed jowls was a mind full of brightly polished little wheels, spinning like mad.
‘He does not seem overly inclined to use that power,’ said Carding.
‘What about Billias and Virrid?’
‘Childish pique,’ said Carding.
The other wizards stared from him to the bursar. They were aware of something going on, and couldn’t quite put their finger on it.
The reason that wizards didn’t rule the Disc was quite simple. Hand any two wizards a piece of rope and they would instinctively pull in opposite directions. Something about their genetics or their training left them with an attitude towards mutual co-operation that made an old bull elephant with terminal toothache look like a worker ant.
Spelter spread his hands. ‘Brothers,’ he said again, ‘do you not see what has happened? Here is a gifted youth, perhaps raised in isolation out in the untutored, um, countryside, who, feeling the ancient call of the magic in his bones, has journeyed far across tortuous terrain, through who knows what perils, and at last has reached his journey’s end, alone and afraid, seeking only the steadying influence of us, his tutors, to shape and guide his talents? Who are we to turn him away, into the, um, wintry blast, shunning his-’
The oration was interrupted by Gravie blowing his nose.
‘It’s not winter,’ said one of the other wizards flatly, ‘and it’s quite a warm night.’
‘Out into the treacherously changeable spring weather,’ snarled Spelter, ‘and cursed indeed would be the man who failed, um, at this time-’
‘It’s nearly summer.’
Carding rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully.
‘The boy has a staff,’ he said. ‘Who gave it to him? Did you ask?’
‘No,’ said Spelter, still glowering at the almanackical interjector.
Carding started to look at his fingernails in what Spelter considered to be a meaningful way.
Well, whatever the problem, I feel sure it can wait until morning,’ he said in what Spelter felt was an ostentatiously bored voice.