‘Look at the Ramtops, now. You could almost reach out and touch them.’
They stared out across two hundred leagues towards the towering mountain range, glittering and white and cold. It was said that if you travelled hubwards through the secret valleys of the Ramtops, you would find, in the frozen lands under Cori Celesti itself, the secret realm of the Ice Giants, imprisoned after their last great battle with the Gods. In those days the mountains had been mere islands in a great sea of ice, and ice lived on them still.
Coin smiled his golden smile.
‘What did you say, Carding?’ he said.
‘It’s the clear air, lord. And they look so close and small. I only said I could almost touch them-’
Coin waved him into silence. He extended one thin arm, rolling back his sleeve in the traditional sign that magic was about to be performed without trickery. He reached out, and then turned back with his fingers closed around what was, without any shadow of a doubt, a handful of snow.
The two wizards observed it in stunned silence as it melted and dripped on to the floor.
Coin laughed.
‘You find it so hard to believe?’ he said. ‘Shall I pick pearls from rim-most Krull, or sand from the Great Nef? Could your old wizardry do half as much?’
It seemed to Spelter that his voice took on a metallic edge. He stared intently at their faces.
Finally Carding sighed and said rather quietly, ‘No. All my life I have sought magic, and all I found was coloured lights and little tricks and old, dry books. Wizardry has done nothing for the world.’
‘And if I tell you that I intend to dissolve the Orders and close the University? Although, of course, my senior advisors will be accorded all due status.’
Carding’s knuckles whitened, but he shrugged.
‘There is little to say,’ he said. ‘What good is a candle at noonday?’
Coin turned to Spelter. So did the staff. The filigree carvings were regarding him coldly. One of them, near the top of the staff, looked unpleasantly like an eyebrow.
‘You’re very quiet, Spelter. Do you not agree?’
No. The world had sourcery once, and gave it up for wizardry. Wizardry is magic for men, not gods. It’s not for us. There was something wrong with it, and we have forgotten what it was. I liked wizardry. It didn’t upset the world. It fitted. It was right. A wizard was all I wanted to be.
He looked down at his feet.
‘Yes,’ he whispered.
‘Good,’ said Coin, in a satisfied tone of voice. He strolled to the edge of the tower and looked down at the street map of Ankh-Morpork far below. The Tower of Art came barely a tenth of the way towards them.
‘I believe,’ he said, ‘I believe that we will hold the ceremony next week, at full moon.’
‘Er. It won’t be full moon for three weeks,’ said Carding.
‘Next week,’ Coin repeated. ‘If I say the moon will be full, there will be no argument.’ He continued to stare down at the model buildings of the University, and then pointed.
‘What’s that?’
Carding craned.
‘Er. The Library. Yes. It’s the Library. Er.’
The silence was so oppressive that Carding felt something more was expected of him. Anything would be better than that silence.
‘It’s where we keep the books, you know. Ninety thousand volumes, isn’t it, Spelter?’
‘Um? Oh. Yes. About ninety thousand, I suppose.’
Coin leaned on the staff and stared.