Sourcery (Discworld 5)

Coin took it. For the first time Spelter saw uncertainty cross his face.

‘Isn’t there some sort of formal ceremony?’ he said.

Carding coughed.

‘I-er, no,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He glanced up at the other senior mages, who shook their heads. ‘No. We’ve never had one. Apart from the feast, of course. Er. You see, it’s not like a coronation, the Archchancellor, you see, he leads the fraternity of wizards, he’s,’ Carding’s voice ran down slowly in the light of that golden gaze, ‘he’s you see … he’s the … first …among … equals …’

He stepped back hurriedly as the staff moved eerily until it pointed towards him. Once again Coin seemed to be listening to an inner voice.

‘No,’ he said eventually, and when he spoke next his voice had that wide, echoing quality that, if you are not a wizard, you can only achieve with a lot of very expensive audio equipment. ‘There will be a ceremony. There must be a ceremony, people must understand that wizards are ruling, but it will not be here. I will select a place. And all the wizards who have passed through these gates will attend, is that understood?’

‘Some of them live far off,’ said Carding, carefully. ‘It will take them some time to travel, so when were you thinking of-’

‘They are wizards!’ shouted Coin. ‘They can be here in the twinkling of an eye! I have given them the power! Besides,’ his voice dropped back to something like normal pitch, ‘the University is finished. It was never the true home of magic, only its prison. I will build us a new place.’

He lifted the new hat out of its box, and smiled at it. Spelter and Carding held their breath.

‘But-’

They looked around. Hakardly the Lore master had spoken, and now stood with his mouth opening and shutting.

Coin turned to him, one eyebrow raised.

‘You surely don’t mean to close the University?’ said the old wizard, his voice trembling.

‘It is no longer necessary,’ said Coin. ‘It’s a place of dust and old books. It is behind us. Is that not so … brothers?’

There was a chorus of uncertain mumbling. The wizards found it hard to imagine life without the old stones of UU. Although, come to think of it, there was a lot of dust, of course, and the books were pretty old …

‘After all … brothers … who among you has been into your dark library these past few days? The magic is inside you now, not imprisoned between covers. Is that not a joyous thing? Is there not one among you who has done more magic, real magic, in the past twenty-four hours than he has done in the whole of his life before? Is there one among you who does not, in his heart of hearts, truly agree with me?’

Spelter shuddered. In his heart of hearts an inner Spelter had woken, and was struggling to make himself heard. It was a Spelter who suddenly longed for those quiet days, only hours ago, when magic was gentle and shuffled around the place in old slippers and always had time for a sherry and wasn’t like a hot sword in the brain and, above all, didn’t kill people.

Terror seized him as he felt his vocal chords twang to attention and prepare, despite all his efforts, to disagree.

The staff was trying to find him. He could feel it searching for him. It would vanish him, just like poor old Billias. He clamped his jaws together, but it wouldn’t work. He felt his chest heave. His jaw creaked.

Carding, shifting uneasily, stood on his foot. Spelter yelped.

‘Sorry’, said Carding.

‘Is something the matter, Spelter?’ said Coin.

Spelter hopped on one leg, suddenly released, his body flooding with relief as his toes flooded with agony, more grateful than anyone in the entire history of the world that seventeen stones of wizardry had chosen his instep to come down heavily on.

His scream seemed to have broken the spell. Coin sighed, and stood up.

‘It has been a good day,’ he said.

It was two o’clock in the morning. River mists coiled like snakes through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, but they coiled alone. Wizards did not hold with other people staying up after midnight, and so no-one did. They slept the troubled sleep of the enchanted, instead.

In the Plaza of Broken Moons, once the boutique of mysterious pleasures from whose flare-lit and curtain-hung stalls the late-night reveller could obtain anything from a plate of jellied eels to the venereal disease of his choice, the mists coiled and dripped into chilly emptiness.

The stalls had gone, replaced by gleaming marble and a statue depicting the spirit of something or other, surrounded by illuminated fountains. Their dull splashing was the only sound that broke the cholesterol of silence that had the heart of the city in its grip.

Silence reigned too in the dark bulk of Unseen University. Except-

Spelter crept along the shadowy corridors like a two-legged spider, darting - or at least limping quickly -from pillar to archway, until he reached the forbidding doors of the Library. He peered nervously at the darkness around him and, after some hesitation, tapped very, very lightly.