‘I’m sorry.”
‘He helped you.’ Rincewind turned on the other wizards, who were scurrying away. ‘All of you. He gave you what you wanted, didn’t he?’
‘We may never forgive him,’ said Hakardly.
Rincewind groaned.
‘What will be left when it’s all over?’ he said. ‘What will be left?’
Hakardly looked down.
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.
The octarine light had grown brighter and was beginning to turn black around the edge. It wasn’t the black that is merely the opposite of light, though; it was the grainy, shifting blackness that glows beyond the glare and has no business in any decent reality. And it buzzed.
Rincewind did a little dance of uncertainty as his feet, legs, instincts and incredibly well-developed sense of self-preservation overloaded his nervous system to the point where, just as it was on the point of fusing, his conscience finally got its way.
He leapt into the fire and reached the staff.
The wizards fled. Several of them levitated down from the tower.
They were a lot more perspicacious than those that used the stairs because, about thirty seconds later, the tower vanished.
The snow continued to fall around a column of blackness, which buzzed.
And the surviving wizards who dared to look back saw, tumbling slowly down the sky, a small object trailing flames behind it. It crashed into the cobbles, where it smouldered for a bit before the thickening snow put it out.
Pretty soon it became just a small mound.
A little while later a squat figure swung itself across the courtyard on its knuckles, scrabbled in the snow, and hauled the thing out.
It was, or rather it had been, a hat. Life had not been kind to it. A large part of the wide brim had been burned off, the point was entirely gone, and the tarnished silver letters were almost unreadable. Some of them had been torn off in any case. Those that were left spelled out: WIZD.
The Librarian turned around slowly. He was entirely alone, except for the towering column of burning blackness and the steadily falling flakes.
The ravaged campus was empty. There were a few other pointy hats that had been trampled by terrified feet, and no other sign that people had been there.
All the wizards were wazards.
‘War?’
‘Wazzat?’
‘Wasn’t there,’ Pestilence groped for his glass, ’something?’
‘Wazzat?’
‘We ought to be … there’s something we ought to be doing,’ said Famine.
‘S’right. Got an appointment.’
‘The-’ Pestilence gazed reflectively into his drink. ‘Thingy.’
They stared gloomily at the bar counter. The innkeeper had long ago fled. There were several bottles still unopened.
‘Okra,’ said Famine, eventually. ‘That was it.’
‘Nah.’