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. >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-’